


Love Not Wisdom

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (Canon Compliant Is A Warning Tag), (it's rotten work; not to me not if it's you), Australiana, Beleg POV, Canon Compliant, Forgiveness, Forgiveness Despite Anyone's Best Interests, Healing, Loyalty, M/M, Nightmares, POV Third Person Limited, Pining, Torture, journeying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 07:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Love didn’t make following Túrin a good idea, or a wise one.(What if it did?Asked a traitorous voice in Beleg's head.What if wisdom didn’tmatter?)Beleg follows Túrin, in the marches and in exile. This is not in Beleg's best interest.(Or:The Children of Húrinfrom Beleg's perspective.)





	Love Not Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> This has been many months in the works. I really hope you guys like it! 
> 
> And as a note, some dialogue is taken directly from _Children of Húrin_.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, The Avatar Editor (yes, that's what they asked to be called.)
> 
> And tip of the hat to scripttorture on tumblr, who does great work in helping many writers, and is indirectly responsible for the torture scenes in this making any level of sense and have any amount of realism.

The rain fell. It made cold sheets of water off the leaves, fast moving puddles across the soil, and roared as it shot through the canopy, frigid and fast the way failed hail was, raindrops that wanted so badly to be ice that they shot right past it back to liquid. It ran down the bark of the black gums, turning the trunks to shining ink and ruby.

Beleg and Túrin sheltered under an oilskin lean to – hastily put up, the rain came on as fast too– against an old black gum.

Túrin pushed his dripping fringe off his face. “We should be out there.” He thrummed with agitation– it was a human thing, a desire to constantly do and go and use the light of the candle of their life for as long as they could– or so Túrin had told Beleg. He thrummed also with cold. He was damp, and the rain cooled against his skin, and it was only natural to shiver. “There could be orcs about.” A lame excuse, a half thought out reason for the desire to be out of the lean to, to be _doing_ and not _sheltering_.

“Not in this weather,” said Beleg. Water dripped off his hair, under his cloak and down his back, leaving an icy trail.

“It’s darker than usual. Orcs like the dark.” They pressed up against each other, thigh to thigh, so that they were fully sheltered by the small oilskin. Heat passed between them, before being stolen away by the rain as quickly as it was gained.

“Orcs don’t like the wet.”

Túrin huffed out an incredulous breath. “And you asked them that?” He seemed grateful for the distraction, the conversation—but he was always somewhat unreadable. (Beleg made a study of it. He never gained a mastery of it.)

“I watched them do that.” He leaned back against the tree (and sideways towards Túrin, though that was merely accidental), to try and stop the drip of his hair. Dried sap dug into his back. “There was a camp, fifty or so years back. They had to know we were coming, they had enough watchers for it, but then it started raining- a light one, nothing like this. But they stayed in their tents, didn’t try and move or retreat as we fell on them.”

“…They might have got ordered not to do that, after that happened.”

Beleg waved a hand out. “If you want to go check and freeze your ears off, be my guest.”

The failed hail finally succeeded. A hard patter of ice fell and bounced merrily off the soil.

“You’re lucky. Elves don’t get cold.” Túrin’s shivering increased in strength, and his teeth chattered as he talked.

Half jealousy, half veiled joke, Beleg guessed. “We get cold. I’m cold right now.” He shivered. Deliberately. It was a waste of energy, completely unnecessary, he wasn’t _that_ cold—but the show of solidarity seemed important. If Túrin had to shiver, it would be churlish not to do it himself.

And something caught in the transfer of heat—heat started to gain, to flow properly between them, and not just fizzle out into the damp.

Túrin leaned in to the heat.

They sat close, and watched the hail and watched for signs of orcs.

* * *

After the rain cleared, they hurried back to one of the marchwarden’s cabins, before it could start again.

The cabin sat inside a clearing walled with out-of-flower wattle and tall paperbarks. It was a small wooden building on stilts, that had a few beds and hearth inside, a clearing outside with a fire pit, and most importantly, a store room with food, arrows, and spare gambesons so they could get out of their wet clothes.

Túrin leaned against the ladder up, and squeezed a few drops of water out of his hair. He made a face, and shook his head like a dog. Even less water came out. “I don’t know how you stand it. You have even more hair,” Túrin said.

Beleg sat back on one of the logs around the fire pit. “Maybe elven hair just dries faster.” An obvious lie—it was less wet than it had been, but he could probably still save any passing dehydrated mice with his braid alone. 

Túrin exhaled sceptically.

After a moment he ambled over to the area under the stilts, bored and restless. Goods that didn’t require storage indoors were kept underneath the cabin. It was mostly firewood in neat piles, a few orcish tents that it seemed wasteful to leave in the woods and, other miscellany in less neat piles. Túrin rummaged through the miscellaneous pile.

He made a small noise in his throat of triumph, and held out two wooden practice swords. “It’d pass the time.”

Beleg levered himself off his log. The ground was muddy, maybe a little bit too slippery—but not dangerous, by his judgment. “If the orcs aren’t going to give us any practice—” He smiled, and took one of the proffered swords.

They moved to a clearer area and sparred. Starting slowly—more testing their reach with the unfamiliar practice swords, testing the other’s reach.

Túrin pressed the initiative.

There was a back and forth—But Beleg stayed on the backfoot. Each of his parries was swiftly escaped, each thrust quickly parried.

It seemed wrong to say that Túrin was an equal or better swordsman, Beleg had been training for at least four times the length of his life—but Beleg favoured the bow. Túrin favoured the sword. Maybe it made sense.

Túrin struck fast, but Beleg could see the pattern. Thrust counter jab parry thrust—Just a few more seconds, let Túrin be lulled into a false sense of security, then exploit the pattern—

Something struck hard against his sword hand. Something else barrelled him over.

He fell backward, sliding a few centimetres in the mud. The sky filled his field of view. He blinked. Sat up a little.

Túrin looked down at him, wild and travel stained and with a manuka twig stuck in his hair, radiant and haloed by the sun behind the clouds. He smiled—the guarded smile of accomplishment and well-earned pride, not arrogance.

Beleg blinked again. It was—surprisingly hard to think while on the floor. Yes. That was it.

Túrin’s smile faded, became something more like concern. He gently tapped Beleg on the chin with the tip of his sword. “Are you alright?”

“That was… impressive.”

“Mablung taught me.” Túrin lifted his chin with sword, looked into his eyes (for sign of blown pupils, or some other injury, Beleg guessed.) “Hit your head?” He asked again, as if a rephrasing might get a more relevant answer.

Beleg sat up and felt the back of his head. His hand came back muddy but not bloody. “Not too hard. I’ve certainly had worse.”

Túrin nodded, put down his sword, and offered his hand to Beleg.

Beleg braced himself against it and hauled himself up.

He caught a glimpse of Túrin’s sword on the ground—not, not Túrin’s. Beleg’s sword had a sanded down knot on the ‘blade’. Which the sword on the ground also had. So, not Túrin’s sword.

His sword.

Beleg blinked again. “Definitely impressive.”

Túrin smiled, open mouthed and showing eye-teeth. “I’d be worried if I wasn’t.”

* * *

Beleg woke to the sound of Túrin swearing. It was a stream of whispered invective in a Taliska dialect local to Hithlum, and Beleg was reasonably certain it invoked the Valar in a negative light.

“Language,” Beleg said, as he sat up. “What is it?”

Túrin held his sword up to the light, turned it this way and that. “It seems churlish to complain about orcs wearing hard armour—”

Beleg padded up and leaned over the blade.

Scratches, shallow enough to be hidden in most lights but obvious in the slanted light of dawn, gashed their way across the edge of the blade. The edge even rolled for an inch in one section, curled over itself.

“It’s fixable, at least,” Beleg pointed out.

“In Menegroth.” Túrin dropped the sword into its scabbard and stood up. “I should go back there anyway, sooner or later.” He ran his fingers through his hair. They caught almost immediately on a matt, and he pulled them out and shook them, dropping strands of hair to the floor. “Being in civilisation will be good for me.”

“I would follow you—”

“But there are orcs about.” He sighed. “The border needs guarding. I understand.” He assembled his pack. It was quick work—he kept it mostly packed as much as he could. “I shouldn’t be there long. I’ll meet you here next new moon?”

Beleg touched his finger tips to his chest and then pointed them back at Túrin in a flower shape—a traditional Doriathrin farewell. “Till we meet again.”

Túrin hoisted his pack over his shoulder. “Till we meet again.”

* * *

Túrin did not return by the new moon. He did not return by the third night of waxing.

There were non-concerning explanations for his delay-come-absence. The sword had some more subtle damage that had taken longer to repair than expected. The light and laughter of friends and merriment in Menegroth had caused Túrin to lose track of the time. Thingol and Melian had returned unexpectedly, and Túrin stayed in their company.

There were _less_ concerning explanations. Mablung suddenly needed more wardens in the south, and called Túrin there, but had none left to send a message to Beleg. 

But those explanations were—not _impossible_, not _unlikely_, but not something one could assume.

Doriath was as safe as anywhere could be in Beleriand. But the Marches were not safe, with orc patrols testing the borders. And no forest was safe. Dead branches fell, loose soil collapsed, wild animals attacked. Túrin was an experienced woodsman—as much as any human could be—but he was alone and such hazards had killed those centuries older than him.

He could have waited for him to return to the cabin. It would have been reasonable to do so. It was only a minor delay. But—if there was a problem, it would be better to find out sooner, rather than never.

So he left, and went looking for Túrin.

He followed the road back to Menegroth, tracking and searching and casting about for any sign of Túrin’s passing. It was futile—there had been heavy rains during the waning moon, it had been many days, any sign would have been washed away or blown away or simply covered by other tracks.

But he searched anyway.

(He hoped he would find footprints.

He hoped they’d bump into each other along the road, Túrin fresh faced and well rested and carrying a repaired sword.

He feared he’d find a corpse.)

* * *

Halfway to Menegroth, a flash flood had washed away a great section of road, leaving a semi-circular crater in the packed dirt, and a smeared trail of earth into a gully.

The heaviest rains had been in the early wane. Túrin would have been in Menegroth.

Should have been in Menegroth.

Beleg jumped into the pit. He had to check. (He hoped he was being foolish, paranoid, like an anxious game hen counting her chicks for the third time.) He nearly fell as the mud slipped under his feet, and caught himself on the crater wall.

There was no sign of anyone or anything in the gully, just broken sticks of acacia stuck into the mud and churned earth. But it was a flash _flood_. Anything would have been washed away by the rains that carved up the road.

He walked deeper into the gully.

Nothing but foreign dirt crushing the grasses, rapidly drying streams and rills. Further on, bird tracks. And then—

A long black hair, sticking in the mud. He pulled it out, trying to not break it. It could be Túrin’s (could be a sign that passed here, that he got drowned or crushed or–) He held it in the light.

It was too long. Too fine.

He looked down.

A set of tracks went past where the hair was, pressed into the gravel. Boot prints, but not march warden style, and much smaller feet. Not Túrin.

He dropped the hair, and shook himself. This was pointless. This was a distraction. Túrin was most likely in Menegroth, and the sooner he got there, the sooner he got to stop worrying and merely look foolish and anxious. He turned back towards the path.

Túrin could handle himself.

He clambered back up the crater.

Túrin was fine.

He’d be fine.

* * *

There was no sign of Túrin, or any potential disasters, along the southward road to Menegroth. It was… comforting. Made it seem more likely that Túrin had just got himself stuck in the city for one reason or another.

Beleg walked across the bridge over the Esgalduin, and entered through the gates. Menegroth’s entrance was dark and cool, with a wet breeze blowing off the river and in through the door. Elven voices echoed and rung against the walls, despite there being few people so close to the entrance. Menegroth sung louder than the wilds, and its song was filled with noise of little meaning, where no sound mattered but the voice of whoever you were talking to. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket of sound, as comforting as it was restricting.

Mablung paced in the lobby, agitated and watchful. His eyes caught Beleg’s, and he strode over. “Has anyone told you?”

“Told me what?”

His mouth set in a grim line. “They haven’t, then.” Mablung took him by the shoulders and steered him towards a shadowed alcove.

“I have only just entered the city; I can’t blame anyone for not telling me yet.”

Mablung stared at him, and his mouth opened a few times, like he was trying—and failing—to gather himself to speak.

Beleg frowned. “What happened?”

“Túrin escaped, run off, was exiled—they’re all rather the same thing in this case.” Mablung waved a hand, in an uncharacteristically vague motion. “He killed Saeros.”

Beleg boggled. They’d never been best of friends, Túrin and Saeros, but for it to escalate to murder? Túrin could be rash and high tempered—but not _murderous_.

“Or caused his death, rather, but he wasn’t remorseful. I found him chasing Saeros—who was naked and bleeding, and I _doubt_ that was Saeros’ own doing—through the woods. They’d fought, the night before. I can’t say either covered themselves in glory, but there was no killing insult. I tried to get Túrin to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.”

It failed to fully sink in. “That seems—” He was about to say ‘out of character,’ but that wasn’t true, was it? He wouldn’t have predicted that Túrin would kill someone, but to get caught up in some passion or other, to not stop, even as people warn him to? If he had to pick someone—

“Saeros tried to leap a gully. Failed. Died. When I called Túrin back to face judgment—not even a punishment, just a _ruling_—He refused. Said I could kill, or let him run. We—” Mablung broke eye contact, looked at the limestone floor on his left. “I had had rather enough death at that point.”

“I understand. Your decision, I mean, not what happened.” Beleg ran his fingers through his hair. “I might, in time, but now, it’s—it’s rather a lot.” All the pieces fit together. An insult. Túrin railing and working himself up into a froth, and just not _stopping_—and someone dying because of it. Túrin working himself into another fit of passion and running. It was all possible. All plausible. Every single piece a logical extension of the other—but it still seemed like something that couldn’t have happened. Maybe because he hadn’t seen it, maybe because of his bias towards Túrin (_He could get caught up in things, so so caught up, but he could always stop, always see _reason_, even if you had to shove it _in his face_—Saeros must have done something, it must be his fault somehow—no, no, don’t malign the dead, he _died_ because of _Túrin_—_)

Mablung lay a hand on his shoulder. “I wish I was telling you something different, that I had better news.”

A laugh forced its way out of Beleg’s throat, sudden and against his will and more breath than sound.

Mablung flinched, startled and confused.

“It’s just—when he didn’t return, I thought he might have died. Got caught in a flood, or run into a bear with young, or _something_—” More laughter came through, bitter and out of his control and tinged with something between relief and pain “—and I don’t know if this is better or worse.”

Mablung patted his shoulder, and left him in the alcove, laughing until he choked.

* * *

Beleg stayed in Menegroth, trying to fit the details together. More information did not make things make more _sense_—but it gave the situation weight. If so many people had seen it, then it had to have happened, made it couldn’t be some fever dream of Mablung’s. (But when was Mablung any other than aggressively factual?)

The reality settled over him like sediment settling in a creek, an inevitable sinking down into the fact that Túrin was exiled. He didn’t have to be, but he had chosen to be, and it was what happened.

It was the truth. Regardless of what Beleg wanted.

Shortly after, Thingol and Melian returned to Menegroth from their summering. They were shocked and saddened, and in Thingol’s case, desiring of judgment to be swift—even in absentia.

* * *

Beleg left the caves of the city on the day of trial. Not to return to the marches, he would be back in Menegroth before sunset– just to be _out_.

To be away from the trial, and the temptation to watch it.

He was not a witness, and his presence would be unnecessary. Plenty would watch it, and would be able to tell him what happened. (He could make a pretty good guess of what would happen, anyway.) It would be painful and useless and unnecessary and like watching the needle go into the wound as it was stitched.

He walked along the goat tracks across the roof of Menegroth. Mostly as something distracting, as something to do. At least one could claim that walking along the tracks rutted them deeper, and kept the grass off them. That was useful. That was something he could do. Even when he was reduced to frustration and pacing and worry.

“Are you a friend of Túrin?” said a voice from above him.

He looked up, searching for the speaker. “I am.”

Nellas appeared out of a dense clump of leaves, and clambered her way down the tree. “Is he alright?”

Beleg looked at the ground. A drying clump of grass stuck out from the path, half uprooted by erosion. “I could not say.”

“I’d heard he’d been driven out, but—”

“He left of his own accord.” The words struck like a sword against a shield, sat ringing in the air.

Nellas chewed her lip, and looked at his shoulder, not his face. “I saw something, before he left. I don’t know if it matters. But I saw it.”

Beleg looked up, and softened his voice as much as he could manage. “What did you see?”

“I was in a tree, watching Túrin. I don’t get to see him much, he’s always at the marches, or Menegroth—I was in a tree, and I saw Túrin walking out. Carrying a heavy pack. A march pack. I also saw Saeros—he was _skulking_ about. I didn’t think one could skulk with a sword and shield, but he was, and—” Nellas flashed a glance up to his face, before continuing. “Saeros attacked Túrin, but Túrin bettered him, and let him go.”

“I’d also heard—other details. That make ‘let go’ sound… unlikely,” Beleg said.

Nellas spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Saeros tried to strike him down. He still let him go.”

Beleg nodded and closed his eyes, in acknowledgment of the point. “The fact that he was attacked, that it was self-defence—these are grave tidings.” It wasn’t some slight, but an actual attack—that made more sense that Túrin chasing someone over an insult. It felt more likely. Felt right.

And that had to change the judgment. A death during self-defence? That was unfortunate accident, not an unprovoked attack.

The lip chewing increased in vigour. “I know. I heard the king was going to judge him. Could you tell him what I saw?”

Beleg shook his head. “On a matter of such importance, he would want to hear from you.”

“I… understand,” she said, like she was forcing the words around a rock in her throat. “—Are you sure you can’t pass it on, it’s so important, but I_ can’t_—”

“–Thingol wouldn’t take hearsay. I’m sorry.”

Nellas deflated, nearly all the way to the ground.

Beleg was tempted to join her. “I know that you—that you can’t _just_ go in to Menegroth, but would you, for Túrin’s sake?” His voice dropped. “No one else knows this. No one else could say it.”

Nellas looked at the ground, thinking for a while. “Would you help me?”

“I couldn’t say it for you, but I could be there with you.”

“I—I could do it, then.”

He took her hand, and kissed her knuckles, in a gesture of thanks. “I thank you. And Túrin would, too, if he were here.”

* * *

They walked briskly towards Thingol’s audience chamber, hand in hand.

Nellas breathed hard. Possibly from exertion—but, well. That didn’t seem like the full explanation, considering the circumstances. Her eyes stayed fixed on the floor, as far from the walls as she could. She clamped her free hand over her ear.

He squeezed her hand. “You’re—” _going to do great_, he was about to say, but he stopped himself. He didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. Nellas was good at a great many things, but speaking in public, in a space smaller than she was used to? With echoing walls, and many people?

She could still surprise him. Knock them all away with the force of her voice, with the conviction she could carry in her words. But. How likely was that? “It’s going to be okay.”

“I know it’s important, I know, it’s just— ”

They clambered up at a set of stairs, and Beleg started running. The trial had to have started by now, and he had no idea how long it would last, whether it would nearly be over by now– “You’ll do your best; no one can ask any more than that. And people know that you haven’t come into Menegroth before, and that for you to come there must be a very good reason.” He gave her what was meant to be a comforting smile, but it was shaky and unconfident.

At least the genuineness of it landed, and Nellas’ shoulders dropped down from around her ears.

They hurried as much as they could without the risk of Nellas fainting because of a combination of running and hyperventilation. Still, there was a risk, they could miss it—

Thingol raised his hand in judgment, as they skidded into the room.

“Lord, may I yet speak?” said Beleg, loud enough to be heard at the other end of the hall, nearly shouting.

Thingol raised one eyebrow in annoyance, in disdain for Beleg’s lateness- until his eyes landed on Nellas, and the other eyebrow raised in surprise. For Nellas to enter Menegroth—something grave indeed must have happened. “Were you not summoned?” he asked Beleg.

“I was, but I was delayed by seeking a witness.” The lie sat thick on his tongue. It wasn’t fully a lie, at least. He may not have intended to seek a witness, that may not have been the original reason for his absence—but fate had had other plans. “Nellas saw the incident, my Lord.”

Thingol leaned forward. “Will she speak of it?”

Beleg let go of her hand, and gently pushed her forwards.

Nellas blinked and stared, eyes whipping around the crowd, before falling on Thingol because he was one person and she could at least look at one person. Her hands shook. Her legs shook. Everything shook. “I—” The words died in her throat, but she found them again quickly enough. “I mean, my lord, I was—I, I, I was sitting in a tree.”

“As have many,” Thingol said, patiently and paternally.

The encouragement pressed her on—Beleg could see her standing a little straighter. “As did Lúthien! I was thinking of her, and Beren, that morning. Túrin is much like him, the kinship shines through to him.”

Thingol’s smile faded.

Beleg tried to keep his cringing internal, keep it from showing itself on his face. _Get to the point, get to the point—_

“I saw Túrin going out into the woods—strong in purpose,” she said, trying to tie it back to the theme of Beren so it didn’t come across as a nervous diversion. “I watched him as he left, and I saw Saeros skul—_coming up_ behind him, unawares, and springing upon him.”

“This is grave. Graver than I thought likely,” Thingol said. “Choose your words carefully, for Doom shall be called upon after them.”

“I know, that is why I came. I would not enter here for any lighter reason, you know that, my lord. Túrin has been ill-judged—he was _merciful_. Túrin disarmed Saeros. Saeros intended to slay him, and Túrin is a man and as such at greater peril in these things– a death would have been in his own defence. But he let him go. He let Saeros go. I cannot speak his mind” The lip chewing started again, “—but I do not believe Túrin willed his death.”

“I shall judge that. As I shall judge the consequences of that.” Thingol leaned back on his throne. “But your counsel if valuable, and has been heeded.”

Nellas stepped back, and huddled up next to Beleg.

Thingol turned to Mablung. “Did Túrin not mention this to you?”

“He did not, my Lord, or otherwise I should have spoken to him at our parting.”

“And otherwise shall my doom now be,” Thingol declaimed. “Such fault as can be found in Túrin I shall pardon, as one who was wronged and provoked. He shall not seek his pardon, but I will send it to him, wherever he may be, so he can be recalled into honour in my Halls.”

Beleg let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, felt a relief that nearly sent him to the floor. Túrin was no murderer, he was no exile, he could come back—

Nellas fled from the room, sobbing.

* * *

Beleg found her on the woods, kneeling on the ground, face pressed against a paperbark as she wept.

She looked up at him, and wiped the tears off her face. “I’m sorry, it was just—” she gave a shuddery breath “—Menegroth was more than I could deal with, and after, and after– I just couldn’t stay there.”

Beleg knelt on the ground next to her. “I want to thank you for coming in to help. I appreciate it—and Túrin would too.”

The sobbing renewed its strength. Nellas covered her face with her hands, the light through the trees and Beleg’s face more than she could take in. “How could we find him? He’s been gone for so long, and he’s outside Doriath—and—and—”

“I’ll find him.” He didn’t know where that conviction came from… no, that conviction had always been there, lying dormant with nothing to call it out. He would not leave Túrin in the wilds on his own. He would find him. He _could_ find him, and he would use that sliver of _could_ for all of its worth. 

Nellas inhaled, breath shuddering against a shaking diaphragm. “You don’t know you can do that.”

“I wouldn’t want to be proud– but I am a good tracker, and I know him and—” He exhaled. “Nothing will stop me from trying. Nothing will keep me from him. I _will_ find him.” Fate didn’t draw thin, as it would with an oath– but he could still feel the weight of the attention of something much larger than him, something much more abstract that wore the prisons of the dead like a cloak, that built his being out What Must Be.

“Don’t make promise you cannot keep.”

“It’s not a promise.” _And I can keep it._

She pressed her forehead back against the tree. “I wish you good luck, then.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he stood up and walked away.

* * *

The next day, Beleg entered one of the smaller throne rooms. “You called for me, lord?”

The thrones had been carved from the fallen boughs of gum trees, and the walls and floor were strewn with cut banksias, kept artificially fresh through Melian’s will.

Thingol lounged on his chair, forehead creased, like he was thinking over a difficult problem.

Melian—she would have looked blank to an uninformed observer, but Beleg knew enough that her abstracted look was less a sign of inattention, and more a sign of her focusing on many things at once.

“I wish for your counsel,” Thingol said. “I am grieved by Túrin’s exile—he may not have been sentenced as such, but he is ignorant of his pardon, and that is rather the same thing. And I have no good way to send tidings to him. I would not wish for someone I have loved as a son to freeze and die in the wilds. But as it is—” Thingol did not, as a general habit, shrug. It was unbecoming, and he had said as much to Beleg in the past. This was a shift of the shoulders that really wanted to be a wistful shrug, but was supressed and turned into another variant on lounging.

“I will search for him, if you give me leave.” Beleg took a step forward. “I would not lose such a good March warden for no reason. And… I love him also.” It was a simple statement, an obviously true one—they had been close for long in the scale of mortal years, had spent seasons together along the borders. For that closeness to be described as love was merely using an accurate word, and should not have elicited the lump in his throat. But it was a strong word, Beleg thought, and grief could make the simplest of statements hard to say. He believed he could find him. But belief did not necessarily things true. He loved Túrin. Túrin may die in the woods. Túrin may be dead already.

“I am glad. If anyone could do it—” Thingol paused. “I trust in you to succeed. Find him. Guard him. Bring him back to us. If there is any gift that would help in this quest, ask it and I shall give it.”

“A sword,” said Beleg.

Thingol tilted his head, sceptical of such a small request. “A sword?”

Beleg inclined his head. “A sword of worth. There are great hosts of orcs outside the borders, and one elf could not keep them back with bow alone.”

Thingol made a sweeping, generous gesture. “Ask for any sword, bar my own, and you shall receive it.”

Melian’s eyes darted away from the middle distance, and over to him and Thingol. Detecting a turning point in the conversation, or something that may be of import later, Beleg guessed. It was strange, to have so much of a Maia’s attention, off-putting, even—but Túrin was her foster-son, also. Her attention on attempts to find him were not notable or worrying. (Even if he felt otherwise.)

“Anglachel.” Beleg felt he may be pushing his luck—but Thingol did not lie, or make promises that he did not keep. And it was not taking advantage of generosity to ask for something that would help return a family member to someone. “I have heard tell of its quality, and I believe that no one else is using it.”

Thingol waved a hand, and a runner went to retrieve it from the treasury.

After a moment, the runner returned, and handed it to Thingol.

Beleg knelt in front of him, as was proper when receiving a gift from the king.

Thingol placed it in his hands.

It was heavy, heavier than one would expect from a sword that size. And it thrummed with—something. Attention. Wakefulness. Activity. A desire to be used, to leap out of its scabbard. Few swords were mere lumps metal, with no feeling or character. But rare was the sword that revealed it’s character so quickly.

Melian’s attention sharpened, landed fully upon them. It was like being hit in the neck by a blunted arrow: sharp and surprising, and while not injurious, hard to convince the senses of that fact. “The sword is like its smith,” she said. Eöl was well known, and ‘like it’s smith’ needed little elaboration, and drew up images of spite and darkness and the contained malice of a blackberry bush. “It will not love you. You will not wield it for long.” She sounded certain, as certain as the river ran clear or the night was filled with stars.

A certain Maia was someone one should listen and take heed to, if you could.

Beleg didn’t know how to. “I will wield it while I may, then.”

* * *

Many Marchwardens spread out into the countryside in search of Túrin. Beleg was glad of the assistance, even if he was not confident of how helpful they would be. (They were all superlative trackers—but they’d also all trained Túrin in how to evade tracking. So.)

In those first few days, as they spread out from Doriath, he crossed paths with many of his compatriots. They looped and searched and re-covered ground others already had gone over to double check.

As they he got further and further out, the ground they had to cover grew larger. The hope that they would find Túrin grew thinner. Later days, he stopped seeing more than one Marchwarden every day, and generally only ran into someone once a day.

And then once a week.

And then he stopped seeing the others at all.

* * *

He ran into his first sign of Túrin accidentally.

He travelled north west. Partially because he guessed that Túrin would head towards more closed country, away from the open riparian plains of the Sirion, partially out of gut feeling, and partially because he needed to go in a direction, any direction.

There had been no sign that anyone had found, at least among those he’d crossed paths with. Túrin could cover his tracks well, they had little idea where he would go, and it had been long enough that any tracks may have simply been blown away by the wind or water.

It was cold, with a bitter wind blowing off the northward mountains, but even in the cold exertion made one thirst.

Beleg walked through a stand of long grass, towards the sound of a burbling creek. Out of the corner of his eye, wallabies in their winter coats hopped away from the sound of him, bounding over the grass at high speed. The grass stood up defiantly, but he could see the hurts of frost along their stalks.

He stumbled into the sign accidentally. An unexpected flash of colour that drew the eye, something so easily missed, something evidently lost—

An arrow sat in the ground, stuck into the earth at a low angle, it’s bright orange fletching dulled by dirt and rain.

He knelt down to get a closer look. It was Sindar in style, the fletching dyed with dilute madder root, the shaft made from the wood of a ribbon gum. Fletching dyed with dilute madder root was common among hunters in Doriath, as the bright colour stood out against the forest and made stray arrows easier to retrieve.

There was no reason for any hunter to be this far out of Doriath.

Túrin, with his comparatively poor eyesight compared to an elf, favoured such arrows.

Túrin, who needed to eat, who might have tried to shoot a wallaby and lost an arrow in the long grass, had likely passed through here.

It was strangely heartening. Even if the arrow had been in the ground for weeks, it was the start of a trail. It was a sign that Túrin had been _here_, that Beleg now knew at least one place where Túrin had been.

(It meant that Túrin had not died weeks ago, if he had shot an arrow.)

Beleg wiggled it out of the ground, tied it with a piece of string to mark it as special, as _evidence_, and placed it in his pack.

* * *

Winter, with its bitter frosts and brown grass and crying currawongs and pairs of king parrots presiding over barren feasts, passed with no other sign of Túrin. Beleg walked straight along the line made between Menegroth and where he had found the arrow. Túrin had likely gong in that direction…

Spring came. Stands of wattles sprang to life, turning valleys gold and filling the air with their heavy pollen. Grass flashed green as the days grew long enough to grow, before fading back to brown as the sun grew hot enough to parch them. The king parrots made their farewells and travelled south, and the magpies made nests and swooped anyone who looked like they would threaten their young.

Beleg stopped walking in a line, and started making great spirals across the land, trying to cover as much possible in the vain hope of finding any sign.

(The land was so vast. Túrin had so much time. He could be _anywhere_. They could be passing each other on opposite sides of a ridge and never know. Every day reduced his chances, and all he had was one arrow and it might not even be Túrin’s!)

Spring rolled on, edging into summer. The sheep’s saviour flowered in sharp purple clumps, less than there would have been in a drier year, but present nonetheless.

A week after the first sheep’s saviour flower, he saw the last other marchwarden he would see on his search.

As twilight waned, a little fire burned in a hollow a kilometre away, obvious to elf sight. It was on its own—more likely a solitary elf or man than some orc scouting group. He approached it cautiously, nonetheless.

It was Hithui. She knelt in front of the fire, straight backed and staring into the flames. He hadn’t seen her much—she was a march warden, but she much preferred to range the southern borders near the Sirion. He was surprised to find her so far north.

He walked towards her, deliberately trying to make some noise.

She looked up, and nodded.

He sat down on the other side of the fire.

“There’s been trouble in the north marches,” she said, with no preamble.

Beleg warmed his hands against the fire. “Who told you?”

“I crossed paths with Canneth, as she was heading south back to Doriath. I’ll be going back that way soon.” She paused, waiting for Beleg to reply.

He didn’t.

“I have not had success finding Túrin, or sign of his passing, and my help will be more useful in Doriath.” She looked at him, and he deliberately did not meet her gaze, and stared at the back of his hand the flickering firelight between his fingers. The subtext was obvious—she was never much for it, and the pauses and speech she held back rang out like she was shouting. _As Canneth passed it on to me, I have passed it on to you. You should return. Túrin is gone. Doriath needs every march warden it can get. Why aren’t you standing up and marching south right now? _

“It’s your decision,” he said. “I’m going to keep looking. I have found some signs of him—I would not say I was on his trail yet, but I am on something like it. And if Doriath needs help, it will be better if I return with two wardens instead of one.”

She shrugged. “If that is your decision.”

* * *

Summer rose and fell, hot days cooling and shortening, rain clouds fading.

Autumn snuck its way in, as a subtle chill, the threat of frost, the red and green of the King parrots returning to the northern trees.

Beleg pressed on.

He still found no more sign of Túrin.

* * *

The Woodmen invited Beleg into the house of Larnach, a Man held in high esteem, for food and company and a place to rest. The Woodmen held hospitality in high esteem, and considered hospitality to the elves to be of particular importance: when one helped an elf, they were likely to return the favour.

With dark tidings from the north, the friendship of an elven warrior was a valuable thing indeed.

They did not say as much, but Beleg could easily tell that it was the case. Humans were so often remarkably transparent. (Excluding one in human in particular, with his habit of comparative unreadability.) He carefully cut his bacon—rich food, but from the winter stores. “Has there been any news in this country?” He asked partially out of politeness, but partially to bring news back to Doriath, if any tidings were actually useful.

“Not much, not much,” said Larnach, dabbing at the fat dripping down his beard with a cloth. “There were some bandits, but they got cleared off. Some of them attacked my daughter, but she was rescued by a man or an elf, and they left right quick after that.”

Beleg cocked his head, intrigued. “Very few people are ambiguously man or elf.”

“He was a man,” said a young woman. Next to Larnach, shared his dark hair. Likely his daughter Foreth, then. “He was lordly, and wore elven mail, like our friend here,” she said, indicating Beleg. “But I saw his ears. They were blunt.” She tapped the tips of her own.

“Men don’t get elven mail,” replied a probable-uncle. He leaned forward, speaking as if he was lecturing a child on the passing of the seasons. “Probably a trick of the light, or an elf lost his ears.”

She frowned, and exhaled loudly. It was small community, one who had chewed the cud of this story over and over.

And Foreth seemed sick of being chewed.

“While it is rare, some Men are given elven mail. I am also seeking someone who is like that,” Beleg interjected. “What did he look like?”

Foreth brightened at someone _asking_ a question instead of _questioning_ her. “Dark hair, long—and a little scruffy. Very tall—he did look like an elf, except for the beard and the ears. He stood tall and proud and bright eyed, and very noble.”

“Anything else?” It could be Túrin—or some jumped up vassal of the Noldor. It wasn’t likely that these people could tell.

“He didn’t want to look at me, I don’t know if it was the state I was in or—uh—” She paused, calculating how to explain this to an elf “—the circumstances or our meeting. He killed one of the people chasing me—but he knew the other’s name. Left with him, too.”

Beleg sat forward in his chair. “Did he give his own name?”

“Neithan,” she said.

_Wronged. _It wasn’t Túrin’s name, but it’s what he would have called himself, as he ran in exile from a crime he only half committed. Combined with the physical description, it _had _to be Túrin.

He stood up. “That is the man I seek.” He bowed at Foreth. “I thank you for your assistance, my lady.”

She coloured noticeably at being given such respect by an elven warrior, and covered her mouth with a nervous hand.

The rest of the hall clamoured.

“Why are you looking for him?”

“What did he do?”

“Is he good or bad? He was with the bandits?”

“What do you think, Mr Elf?”

Beleg ignored the questions, and projected his voice over theirs. “Listen! There is a great host of orcs, travelling south toward here. There are too many for you to withstand. Flee to Brethil before the year is out, while there is still more time.”

More shouting, more questions—How did he know this? Was he going to help them? Why wasn’t he fighting off the orcs?

He swept out of the room. They had been warned, and that was all he could do. The host of orcs was too great for one village and a march warden.

And the sooner he left, the sooner he could be in Túrin’s trail.

He went out into the night, threading through the trees, using the moon to guide him.

Túrin joining a band of outlaws was—not good. Not good in the slightest. (He would have hoped they’d raised him _better than that_—) But Túrin in a large group? A large group could not cover their tracks as well as a single man, no matter their woodcraft.

And if Túrin was rescuing fair maidens from the depredations of— the people he joined up with?— then he was _alive_.

It didn’t take him long to find the bandits’ trail. They were definitely _trying_ to cover their tracks, but even so, he could see the areas of brush where they had spread out to try and not disturb it too much, but had failed. The covered latrine holes. The chatter of the animals, the deer and the possums and potoroos alarmed by the human hunters going past.

…

The campfires in the distance at night.

The extinguished campfires he walked past in the morning, the hastily abandoned camps as they realised something or someone was following them.

But he was getting closer.

He found possums more alarmed. Campfires more freshly extinguished. Firelight flickering closer at night. 

* * *

He found the camp. They had taken shelter in a cave, and had put the fire away from the entrance and screened it to hide it. But even so, the light shone bright to elf sight.

Beleg walked into the cave, holding his hands out so they could see that he had no weapon in them.

The first thing he noticed: A large group of rough looking men, who seemed rather startled to find an elf in their midst. Some reached for knives, others opened their mouths to cry an alarm, others rocked back in surprise.

The second thing he noticed: Túrin was not among them.

The third thing, that he didn’t notice until too late: Someone was behind him.

Rope caught around his arms. Something pulled him backwards.

He stumbled back a step, nearly falling onto them. He regained his balance, but the rope had tightened around his arms. He struggled, tried to pull a wrist free—but he couldn’t. The rope held fast. Tightened with each pull.

He stopped. Straightened his shoulders. Addressed the group. “You should have kept better watch if you did not want company, friends.” He tried to smile, a show of goodwill and good humour, at their ‘amusing over-reaction.’ “I am a friend of Neithan’s, and thus I would hazard that I was a friend of yours, and I have message to give him.”

“Well he’s not here,” said one of them.

There was a flurry of “Ulrad!” and “Don’t _tell him_!” and throat cutting gestures to _keep quiet, you fool_, from the rest of the bandits.

Ulrad’s face turned red, embarrassed, and angry at being embarrassed. “How do you even know him, anyway?” he asked, trying to regain his dignity, and show he could keep the flow of the interrogation going the right way.

“I am a friend of his, as I said.”

The man behind him snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, _right_. This is the fucker what’s been following us,” he said to the rest of the bandits. He leaned close to Beleg, and talked into his ear. His breath was moist and smelled like raw meat. “So, what’s your real reason?”

Beleg frowned, and smiled nervously. “I am a friend of Neithan.”

The man behind him tugged on the rope, nearly forcing him to fall backwards. “What are you, really?”

Beleg enunciated each word clearly and sharply. It wasn’t like they couldn’t hear, or couldn’t comprehend the idea, but in case that was somehow that case, he was going to make it very clear. “I am a friend of Neithan’s, and have come to send him a message.”

The man wrapped the free end of the lasso around his forearms—Beleg could feel how the rope move. “Am I the only one who’s gonna do anything about this guy? Really? I can’t hold onto him forever.”

“What do you want us to do?” replied one of the other bandits, indignantly.

The man behind him seemed temporarily at a loss. He paused, before speaking. “We tie him to the tree, you fuckwits!”

He dragged Beleg backwards, and Beleg had to half run to keep up and stay upright. He tried once more to get his hands free, but to no avail.

One of the other bandits cut off his pack. It fell to the floor with a clatter and a _krump._

“I am a friend of Neithan’s. I mean you no harm.”

“Yeah, _right_.”

Beleg could see the man with the lasso now, with messy brown hair in a messier ponytail, and the stubble of man who tried to shave with the same knife he used for cooking, and a scar on his cheek to show it. He eyed Beleg’s bow as it dropped to the ground. Likely because it was a weapon, Beleg guessed, and ‘proved’ his theory that Beleg must have meant them harm.

There was a flurry around Beleg and the tree- he wouldn’t describe it as ‘practiced’, it seemed more like wild flailing at high speed—and he found himself lashed to the tree with several coils of rope. It didn’t dig in, not yet at least, and he could stand straight or lean against the tree, but he could not duck through the rope.

“This is very unnecessary,” he said.

“_Because you’re a friend of Neithan’s,_” said Ponytail-Lasso, in a mocking sing-song voice. “We heard you the first time. We just don’t believe it.”

“It’s _true._ I am a friend of Neithan’s. I have been so since I first met him in the woods when he was a child. I seek him only in love, and to bring good tidings.”

Ponytail backhanded him across the cheek. It wasn’t hard enough to break skin, but it stung. Beleg guessed there were even odds on whether it would bruise. “Wrong answer! What’s the real one.”

Enunciation hadn’t worked the first time, but maybe the second attempt would drive the point home. “I. Have. Told. You. The. Real. Answer.”

Another backhand for his troubles, over the same spot. Ponytail turned to rest of the group. “Look, if he’s not going to help us, is there any point leaving him around?”

Another of the bandits looked up at him from under bushy black eyebrows. He had a square face, and cropped black hair. “You mean ‘kill him’?”

Ponytail rolled his eyes, and paced, agitated. “If you want to spell it out, yeah.”

“Bear with me for a second—” said Eyebrows. “What if he was telling the truth, and he _is_ a friend of Neithan’s? Do you want to explain to him that we killed a friend of his because we were impatient? ”

Ponytail through his hands out in a wild gesture. “You don’t _believe_ him, do you?”

Eyebrows shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We can’t be sure he’s lying, either. I just don’t want to explain to Neithan that we did something rash for no good reason.” He nodded at the rope. “And it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

Ponytail theatrically buried his head in his hands. “This is so _stupid_. He _could_ be a friend,” he said, drawing the ‘could’ out to six syllables. “He _could_ be a spy from Doriath—”

“What’s wrong with Doriath?” Beleg muttered to himself.

“—But we do know he’s been following us for weeks. Why should we keep him around? He could be trying to murder us in our sleep!”

“Or he could be a friend of Neithan’s,” said Eyebrows. “It may not be likely, but it is possible.”

Ponytail threw his hands up. “Fuck it. Fine. Whatever. If he has tidings for Neithan, he can tell us, and then we can find out whether Neithan needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

Beleg’s raised eyebrows, and then dropped them again just as quick. Telling someone you were only going to keep them alive until you got a message from them did not exactly encourage them to pass on said message. This was not a particularly complicated concept. _And yet_.

He wouldn’t explain it to them. He was not giving them any advice on this foolishness. They were stupid and disorganised, yes, but still dangerous, like a young child with a knife. He wasn’t going to explain things to them, or help them, seeing as it seemed as soon as he did so he’d find a dagger between his ribs. “I shall tell Neithan when he arrives.”

Ponytail turned around and started heading back into the cave. “If you want to wait for him, be my guest,” said Ponytail, with a head jerk and a smirk in the direction of the ropes.

After a few seconds, the rest of the bandits took that as their cue to follow Ponytail back into the cave, leaving him out in the cold night air.

* * *

Beleg got little sleep. Cat napping was possible for a short time, despite the chill wind. But afterwards, the strain of being stuck standing showed itself. His legs ached, and worse, there was no respite. Leaning against the tree helped little, and leaning against the ropes helped less.

The ropes were loose, and didn’t obstruct breathing, but they were tight enough that every shift rubbed against his ribs. A strip of abraded skin formed over his chest. It was merely uncomfortable by pre-dawn, and the pain in his legs was much worse, but he knew it would get much worse.

(He knew he was getting no sleep until Túrin returned, no respite until Túrin returned.

He hoped he returned quickly.)

Morning was worse. His feet swelled, pressing into his boots and trying to break out of them and completely failing to break the stiches. His mouth felt like it was full of linen and his throat with sandpaper. His head throbbed from the thirst.

The leaves of the tree shielded him from the worst of the sun. Small mercies.

By midday, his feet swelled even more, past what felt possible. It was hard to quantify with their constant screaming of _pain pain pain pain_ along his nerves. He hoped that now, as the fight between his swelling feet and the stitching of his boots, his boots would finally lose. He doubted that would come to pass.

He lost his fight with his bladder. It was inevitable—he couldn’t even find it within himself to be particularly embarrassed. What did the bandits expect? And he was too distracted by the pain to devote to much effort to complex concepts like ‘shame at one’s own bodily functions.’

Drying urine appeared to be corrosive. He wished he had never found that out.

His legs hurt. His feet hurt. The skin of his ribs hurt. His groin and upper thighs hurt.

Each pain was subtly distinct from the other.

He wasn’t going to focus on them enough to articulate it.

He didn’t speak. There was no point. He’d said his piece. Nothing else was likely to convince them, if they were not already.

Ponytail—or Andróg, as he’d learned from the chatter of the bandits (Eyebrows was Algund, Ulrad was… Ulrad), deliberately sat next to the tree as he ate his rations. Something kangaroo based, and dried, from the look of it. He deliberately ignored Beleg, in the way a cat would deliberately ignore someone that annoyed it. “Mm-mm, this is delicious,” he said to the empty air. “Best I’ve tasted.”

Beleg rolled his eyes. Hunger pangs were basically a non-entity compared to everything else.

The bandits largely ignored him. Except when trying to mock him by eating food nearby. (It never became more convincing, or however one would describe it, Childish bullshit remained childish bullshit, and hunger was the least of his worries.)

The sun set. The moon rose.

He didn’t sleep.

Time stretched and pulled on itself like toffee.

His back grew bruised from slamming against the tree when his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore. His ribs got bruises from leaning against the ropes when his legs gave out underneath him.

He couldn’t hold himself up anymore. Only the fact that he was braced against things, stopped him from falling over. He couldn’t even properly move by himself, he more or less fell between the tree and the rope and back to the tree again.

Something was going badly wrong with his feet. His boots were still winning.

In the morning, the bandits discussed things. Mostly in the cave. He could hear them- but just. And it was hard to focus on what they said, turn the Taliska sounds into meaning in his head, hold the beginning of the conversation all the way to the end.

They were worried.

Túrin should have returned by now.

They should have left by now.

Theyie shadow had caught up with them. Had Beleg done something Túrin–? Should they do something about him—

Night fell.

The bandits got tenser.

Beleg couldn’t do anything about it.

(He couldn’t do anything.)

Ulrad came out of the cave, brandishing a burning stick, face red and bright with false bravado, the rest of the bandits following. “Last chance, elf—”

Nothing good could come of this.

He could see no way to get out of this alive.

He should have had a last minute burst of strength, broken his bonds and fled off into the night. That was how these things were _meant to work, _how they worked in story and song and campfire tale_._

It didn’t.

He met fiery death with only just enough energy to flinch.

A familiar voice rang out behind him, filled with a mixture of joyful-surprise and surprise-at-the-laws-of-the-world-falling-down-around-him and then _horrified_-surprise. “Beleg!” Túrin skittered to a halt in front of him. His eyes darted. He had an expression that would have been conflicted and unreadable at the best of the times, but in low light and distracted by pain, Beleg didn’t have a chance—“How did you find me? What happened?” The fire light glittered of his face, shiny liquid slipping down his cheeks. Was he crying–?

Beleg opened his mouth with a tacky _clack_. “Uhhghhg—”

Túrin cut the ropes with a knife, and he turned his head to face the bandits. “_What. Happened_?” His breath came in harsh gasps, _sobs _even, but the anger in his voice was undimmed by it.

The ropes broke. Beleg fell forward onto Túrin’s chest. He could feel each heaving rise and fall of Túrin’s chest, the rage behind them. It was oddly comforting.

“We found the guy following us,” said Andróg, with a dismissive sweep of his arms in the general direction of Beleg. “Tried to sneak in, and span some tale about knowing you. We thought it be good to—” Andróg bobbled his head from side to side, thinking. “—Hold him in place, till you got back.”

“_Hold him in place.”_

Andróg flinched.

Beleg was a pile of flesh and bones with nothing holding him up except Túrin. But Túrin was softer than tree, and warmer, and letting him move, even if he couldn’t move much, and Túrin held as much of his weight off his feet as he could.

Túrin half led, half carried him into the cave, and laid him on a bed roll. His eyes darted again, trying to find something he could do, something obvious that would help. “Are you alright?” He said, and seemed to be struck dumb at how obvious the answer was.

Beleg shrugged vaguely.

Túrin pulled his boots off. It was a struggle, each inch taking all of Túrin’s strength, each inch pressing against pained flesh and making Beleg cry out.

Beleg gasped in relief at having them finally off.

Túrin made a face at the state of his feet.

The bandits tiptoed in, unsure if they should be here at this moment.

Túrin held out his waterskin. “Can you hold this?”

Beleg took it in shaky fingers. Opened it. Drank from it. Only sips—oh how, tempting it would be to drain it, and how much of a bad idea that would be. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

Túrin gave a wan smile around the tears. Then he stood up, pulling himself up to his full height like a bear, and all that tenderness transformed into a protective rage. He stared at the bandits, but it was more than a stare. Stares didn’t put you in fear for your life. “Full story. Now,” he said to the bandits, through gritted teeth.

“Where were you?” said Andróg, flailing for a way to turn it back on Túrin.

“Saving Nargothrond from orcs. You?”

“It’s what I said—” said Andróg.

“You tie people to trees to keep them _in place_?” He strode up to Andróg, got right into his personal space. “How long?” Túrin seemed different from how he was in Doriath. ‘Angrier’ or ‘wilder’ didn’t cut it. He was more wolf-like, but less in the sense of a bestial creature, but a noble predator that deserved respect, lest you end up on the wrong side of its teeth.

Andróg shrugged, and tried to look like he didn’t care, like this was nothing to worry about. He failed. Utterly. “Couple a’ days.”

Túrin’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “_Two. Whole. Days_.”

He marched around the fire, seething and trying to form something coherent, something that wasn’t just a scream of rage. “No. This shouldn’t have happened. Not because he’s my friend—” Túrin ran his hands through his hair, and they caught on a mat. “This is orc work. This was cruel and pointless and _should have never have happened_. We’ve been focused on ourselves too long. This is my fault—” He paused his pacing. “But it stops here. _It stops here_.”

“Who else would we focus on? Who else would we help?” Andróg scoffed. “Who would help us?”

“That doesn’t matter. Angband has servants enough already. I’ll do this alone if I have to.”

Beleg had kept quiet. These were Túrin’s men, it seemed, or at least they deferred to him. And talking hadn’t exactly helped him before. But now? He sat up. Slowly, inch by inch.

Túrin turned around, and seemed torn between helping him up, forcing him to lay back down, and just leaving him be.

His hesitation let Beleg lever himself all the way up. “Not alone,” he said. Sitting up was a lot of effort, but it seemed—right. This moment did need some gravitas. More gravitas than he couldget lying on the floor like a wet rag.

Every muscle in Túrin’s body relaxed, to the point here nearly hit the floor from the relief. He knelt in front of Beleg, and opened his mouth to say something, (_Thank you_, Beleg guessed, or something to that affect), but no words have come out. 

“You have been pardoned,” said Beleg. “with no fault found in you. We looked for you for a year, Neithan—though you have no need to call yourself that. The Dragonhelm has been sorely missed, and would be welcomed back in the marches.”

Túrin’s mouth creased into a thin line, and a measure of the tension returned.

The wrong thing to say, then. (Beleg had little idea what the right thing would have been.)

“Rest,” Túrin said. He laid a hand on Beleg’s shoulder. No force was needed to get Beleg to slip back to the floor in exhaustion. “We’ll—” he looked around at the other bandits, who seemed unconvinced. “_I’ll _make my decisions in the morning. We have been here too long, at any rate, and I doubt any company would be welcome as yours.”

Andróg scoffed again, louder this time.

Beleg fell asleep, almost immediately.

* * *

Beleg woke up in the middle of the night, thirsty. (And sore. But much better for having the chance to _lie down _and _move _and_ not be tied to a tree_.) He groped for a waterskin in the dark, and took a big swig.

Something was behind him. Something warm and solid and blood-hot.

He glanced behind him, eyes adjusting to the dark.

Túrin had thrown his cloak over the both of them, and curled up beside him, back to back.

They’d shared beds for warmth before, back on the marches.

He’d never realised that he’d missed it. Sure, there had been nights while he was searching where he had been cold, and wished idly for someone to share warmth, but he’d never realised how much he’d missed Túrin specifically. Túrin ran hot, slept quietly, and had no shame about sharing his heat. And he could trust him. That counted for a lot.

Túrin lifted his head vaguely in the direction of the disturbance behind him. “Didn’t want you dying of cold overnight,” he mumbled. _Didn’t want you getting stabbed by my men overnight._

“Elves don’t get cold.” Beleg half shivered, and drew his exposed fingers back into the protective warmth of the cloak.

“Mhmm.” Túrin flopped his head back down on the ground, asleep almost immediately.

Beleg followed him shortly.

* * *

Beleg woke feeling… _better_ (There wasn’t much room to feel _worse_.)

Túrin offered him a strip of jerky from his pack. Definitely kangaroo based. And chewy, enough to make one’s jaw hurt after a few bites.

The rest of the bandits kept their distance. Whether it was out of fear, or regret, or something else entirely, Beleg didn’t know. Or care, really. If they felt ashamed? They should, after what they’d done. If they felt afraid? All the better to stop it from happening again.

Túrin’s plans to leave that morning were optimistic, in the light of day. Beleg could walk, yes, but only short distances, and even then that came awfully close to splitting the skin of his feet. And that was ignoring the fatigue and the exhaustion of muscles pushed to their limits.

The bandits sat further apart, and their expressions became darker, when they heard they weren’t leaving.

Late morning, Túrin and Beleg ate together, near the mouth of the cave, away from the huddle of the rest of the bandits.

“I expected you to be happier,” said Beleg. “About the news I brought. Doriath wants you back, Doriath needs you back, you’ve been _pardoned_.”

Túrin gave a dismissive hum.

Beleg searched for something to convince him. Túrin had always loved the glory of war, and the protection of the weak. “I did not lie when I said the Dragonhelm has been missed. Orcs have been coming through the North Marches, through Brethil.”

“So they only want me back because I am useful?”

Beleg pinched the bridge of his nose. “No.” Why did he always leap to worst conclusions? “We want you back because you are _loved_. Because you have been pardoned of wrongdoing.”

Túrin’s creased his brow and glared at Beleg. “So what did they judge me as: a murderer, but a useful one?”

“Nellas saw Saeros attack you, and she went into Menegroth to tell Thingol. Thingol ruled you had acted in self-defence.”

“And Mablung?” He asked, as if he knew the answer.

“Told the truth. Why didn’t you tell him in the first place, why did you run?” Beleg spoke quieter almost a hiss. “This didn’t have to happen. You didn’t have to fall to—this!” He gestured at the bandits, his legs throbbing as he leaned over.

“Fall? Maybe I fell, maybe not.” He bobbed his head from side to side. “But that’s how it happened. I was accused of a thing I did not do, with no question or consideration. Why should I have followed Mablung with my tail between my legs, awaiting my punishment like some beaten dog? Why should I have assumed this Nellas would come to my rescue, having not seen her watch me?” He turned his head away from Beleg. “And I am not going back with my tail between my legs to be pitied, as the poor wayward Man who ran when he shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be given pardon, I should be _giving it, _for being driven out unjustly. You may tell Thingol _that_.”

“If that is the message you wish me to send.” Beleg crossed his arms. “So, what do you plan to do?”

“Fare free, as Mablung wished me to. Thingol may pardon me, but he would not let in this sorry lot.” He nodded his head in the direction of the bandits.

_A sorry lot indeed. _The bruises on the soles his feet ached. Every breath rubbed the fabric of his tunic over the rope burn on his ribs.

“I would not leave them if given a choice,” Túrin said. “I do love them. …As one would love unfortunate family, but love nonetheless.”

Beleg looked sideways at them. (Andróg glared back.) “You see them with very different eyes than mine. –Though I imagine you got a warmer welcome.”

Túrin chuckled, but it was bitter, with little affection and less humour. “Not by much,” he said, shaking his head. “Not by much.”

Beleg shook his head. **“**If you try to lift them up, they will just drag you down, every step of the way. One, in particular.” _You saw what they did. I would like to hope you _understood _what they did._

“How should an elf judge men?” Túrin said, accusationally.

“How he would judge all others.”

Beleg went quiet. If Túrin loved them—then he loved them, no matter how unfortunate they were. And trying to convince him otherwise would only push him away. If he wanted him to return to Doriath, to even consider returning to Doriath—Well, Beleg would swallow his pride and his judgment. Swallow all of it, until Túrin came back.

After moment, he spoke again. “Fare free? What do you mean by that?”

“Lead my own men, in my own war against the dark.” He gestured to the mouth of a cave, like it meant a new door opening, or new day dawning. “I regret every blow I have let been struck against elves and men.” He turned back to face Beleg, and laid his own hand on top of his, warm and calloused from holding a blade and living in the wild. “And, if given my choice, I would have you beside me. You are a dear friend, and I have missed you. If you would stay—”

“Love would lead me then, not wisdom.” A pause. “We should return to Doriath.”

Túrin looked at the ground. “I will not.” Earlier in the conversation, he had been full of a banked fire of anger, but now? Now he just seemed sad. Like Doriath was a lost loved one, in the manner Men lost their families and homes all too frequently.

Beleg sighed, “Then I shall follow you, regardless” It was a bad idea. No good could come from staying with these people, no good from being so close to them. He could rationalise it, say he was biding his time to lead Túrin back later—but mostly, he did not want to leave so soon after finding him. He’d take one more day, one more hour—whatever he could.

Even if he could not lead him back to Doriath.

Túrin smiled thinly. “Thank you.”

* * *

The Gaurwaith were still not thrilled by the delay.

He sent a small group to scout ahead for campsites, as a token gesture, to smooth ruffled feathers and calm troubled minds.

Túrin went to a nearby creek to collect water. Beleg came with him. He would not be separated from Túrin’s side, even if he would have had to hobble after him at a distance. And for his part, Túrin would not allow himself to be separated, either.

The distance was doable, if somewhat of a challenge in his current state, as was the terrain. But it was doable. So he did it.

Túrin balanced two empty buckets on a yoke over his shoulders.

Beleg only carried one. Any more may have been _a bit ambitious_.

Túrin leaned over to fill one of the buckets with running water. “Who is Nellas?” he asked.

Beleg looked puzzled. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten—?

Túrin gave an embarrassed shrug. “I may remember the face, but not the name.”

“She was your childhood friend in Doriath. You played in the woods together.”

Túrin swapped buckets, and looked over to horizon pensive. “I barely remember. I remember playing in Doriath, and Nellas is a… plausible name.” He shook his head. “I remember, but barely.”

Beleg placed his bucket in the creek. It filled quickly, and became deceptively heavy quicker. “It was only ten years ago.”

…But that was a long time for a Man, wasn’t it. Enough time to go from a scrawny youth to a world-weary adult. Even after merely a year, Túrin had changed. Not unrecognisably, and not in a way that was easy to articulate, but it was change nonetheless. There was something hard and rough to it, like a half-sanded sword or a calloused hand. He had his moral sense, but it was like it had become clumsy with lack of use. And what had once been _stubbornness_ and a _desire to do well_, to be _praised_, had become _pride_ and _bitterness_ and a wound that would not heal. He was like a young tree that had lost a branch in a storm, and the new green growth reached out in strange directions.

After just a year.

One turning of the seasons.

He lifted the bucket out of the water, and nearly pitched himself over with its weight. “There are other griefs than your own, Túrin.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if elves and men should not meet or meddle.” _Sometimes I wonder how Beren and Lúthien managed it. _ It was with a half-smile, an attempt to be half joking.

Túrin frowned, and took Beleg’s bucket.

* * *

After a week, Beleg was in a position to consider a long journey.

Túrin took him aside again. The Gaurwaith (as he had learned the bandits were called) still did not trust him, and would ignore his council if they knew it was his. But Túrin still sought it, even if he had to hear it alone. “Where would have us go?” he asked.

“If you wished to help, and your talk was not idle: Dimbar, on the Northmarches. The orcs have pressed south of late, through Taur-na-Fuin and the Pass of Anach, and have driven Men out of Brethil.”

Túrin frowned. “I do not recall going there.”

“We had never gone so far from the borders.”

Túrin considered it, frowning as he drew a map in his head, and shook his head. “I will not walk backwards in life. And to enter Dimbar, one must cross the Sirion, only forded in Doriath. I will not go there.” He glared at Beleg. “I’d like to think you recalled what I said. I will not use Thingol’s leave and pardon.”

“It’s not a trick to lead you into Doriath, or for me to pick you up and kidnap you, or—whatever you are imagining. Dimbar needs help, and help that you can offer.”

“Nonetheless, I will not go.”

Beleg exhaled. “You say you are hard, but you are _stubborn_. You speak highly of trying to help, but when offered the choice, you make no effort to be anything other than a brigand.” He wanted to be with Túrin, had missed him terribly—but had he only missed what Túrin had been? He had been stubborn before, but he had stubborn in pursuit of _goals_, not this irrational rejection of anything handed to him. He had been pardoned. There was no shame in that. _Why did he insist on putting shame in that?_

“I do no—”

Beleg cut him off, angry. He had standards. He would not be a brigand, even for Túrin’s sake. If this is what caused them to separate, so be it. He loved Túrin, but he loved all people, and the good of them, and protecting them, more. “No. If you may be stubborn, so may I. I will to Dimbar to help the people of that. If you wish to come you, may.”

Túrin seemed inclined to say more, but it passed. He shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

He turned away, and sat in conversation with Algund and Andróg.

* * *

Beleg left the next morning at dawn. He could walk. Maybe slower than he liked, but he was strong enough again that he could cover a fair distance, and didn’t fear he would die in the wilderness if he tried.

Túrin followed him. There was a tension is his walk, something keeping it tight and restrained. Beleg couldn’t tell what it was. Shame? Regret? Something of that species, anyway. It did not really matter. He kept quiet as he walked, staying two paces behind Beleg, and then—stopped.

The halting of his steps was as loud as the crack of a whip to Beleg’s ears. He turned. “Is this farewell, then, son of Húrin?”

“I do not know. If you wish to keep your word and stay beside me, look for me on Amon Rudh.”

“Else?”

Túrin swallowed thickly. “Else, this is our final parting.”

Beleg placed a hand on his shoulder. He could not meet his eyes for more than an instant, and stared at the stitching on Túrin’s boots as he spoke. “Maybe that is best.”

* * *

Beleg walked.

The woods closed around him.

Every decision he had made was logical, reasonable. He had done nothing wrong. He had told Túrin of his pardon, and when he rejected it, he offered to help Túrin. When Túrin made it clear that while he would speak well of helping others, he would rather run around the woods with cruel bandits, he had decided he wanted no part of that and left.

Every decision sensible. Correct.

The part of him that regretted it, that wanted to run back and sprint back to Túrin’s side, was idiotic. As much as it was tragedy that Túrin would run his life to waste in the woods, it would only compound it to tangle himself up in it.

He had tried to help Túrin, help Túrin help people—and Túrin rejected that.

He had done all he could. Anything else was a waste of energy—

He kicked a tree trunk in frustration, and immediately regretted it. He hopped up and down, and restrained the urge to curse.

Thingol and Melian would have hoped for better news, the Marchwardens also—but he had done what he could. And better that they hear that Túrin was alive (and a _fool_), than for both he and Túrin to vanish into the wilds.

* * *

Making camp alone was ideal for thinking.

Beleg wished it wasn’t, wished that he could march into Doriath having not one thought in his head, for they kept turning back to one topic— an unhappy one where perseveration was not useful.

But he had never learned the knack to emptying his mind. And well—perseveration was not always useless, even if it was painful. A weakened muscle must be walked on to regain its strength, even if it was painful.

He looked into the fire, watching the clay covering the day’s kill crack in the heat. Wind rustled through the trees, making the boughs bounce gently. A possum ran across a branch, and leaped to the next tree.

It was said that all elves only loved once— the love of spouses at least, as opposed to the far spread love of friends and family– barring ill-starred Finwë. Which meant that any given elf did not have much experience with love when it first happened.

He picked at the dry skin of his lip, and took the outside view.

If he knew someone, who persisted in trying to find someone beyond reasonable hope, who longed and wished to follow them, despite that likely leading to ruin, who regretted making the right decision—what guess would he make as to why?

Sindarin had a panoply of vulgarity. A true rainbow palette of obscenity. None of them matched the punch, the sharp shock, of the realisation he had.

(He wished he knew more languages.)

He stood up, some part of him considering making a mad dash for the Bald Hill. He forced himself back down onto his log.

Love didn’t change his calculus. Love explained his actions—it didn’t change his logic. Sometimes the best way to love someone is at a distance so they don’t set you ablaze as they run around on fire. (Even if he burned to return to Túrin’s side.)

Love didn’t make following Túrin a good idea, or a wise one.

(_What if it did? _Asked a traitorous voice in his head. _What if wisdom didn’t _matter_?)_

Love shouldn’t sway him from returning to Doriath. So it didn’t.

(_You could always find him on Amon Rudh, _said the voice.)

* * *

Beleg returned to Doriath in the spring, with the wattles back in their golden bloom.

He headed into the grove of Thingol and Melian, made of an old paperbark, sung into the shape of a room thousands of years ago.

“I heard you had tidings on Túrin,” said Thingol. His eyes landed on the conspicuous empty space beside Beleg.

He nodded. “I found him, and passed on the news of his pardon. He did—not accept it. He wished to ‘fare free,’ as he put it. He is currently leading a band of brigands, and trying to turn their might against Angband.” He did not tell them of his first meeting with said brigands. He did not wish them to worry about Túrin, or him. And—more selfishly, or perhaps a very strange kind of self-sacrificially, he did not want them to think ill of Túrin. He did not participate in what happened, he put a stop to it, and apparently it was the first time—but it would still bring Túrin down in the eyes of Thingol and Melian, if they truly knew who Túrin was with.

Thingol sighed and closed his eyes, not finding any words fit for his grief.

Melian’s silence was—loud. Full of watchful intent. Like a hawk circling over-head, fixated on the rabbit under it. She kept her eyes on Beleg.

So he was the rabbit, then. She could probably see his stupid hope of returning. Melian did not intend to rifle through people’s minds, but she couldn’t _not_ do it, either. And it stuck in the forefront of his mind, despite his attempts to cast it out. (But, well, when it was love, what else could one do about it?)

“We have done what we could. If he knows of his pardon, but rejects it—I cannot force him to accept it,” Thingol said.

Melian reached into her pockets, and pressed a package into Beleg’s hands.

It was dense. Heavy. Wrapped with silver leaves, and marked with the seal of the Queen.

Beleg blinked at it. He knew what it was, but _why_—?

“A gift for your help,” she said, carefully avoiding implying whether said help had ceased or not. “This waybread, Beleg, shall be your help in the wild and winter, and the help of those whom you choose.”

And well, who else would that be? Who would be the one he chose? Why else would Melian be so vague, and yet so _specific? _Who would he wish to help, help so much that Melian couldn’t help but notice?

He bowed formally. “Thank you, my Queen.”

She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes, but she’d never really got the trick of getting her fána to do that. “It is for you to apportion in my stead, passing from my hand through yours.”

He left, with a traitorous spring in his step.

If Melian gave him a gift to help him help Túrin—it didn’t mean it was a good idea. Maia did not deal in good ideas, at least in the way Incarnates would think of such.

But they dealt in worthy ideas, and that was a comforting thought.

* * *

Beleg tidied his affairs. Haphazardly and half-heartedly—literally. While one portion of his heart longed to flee towards Amon Rudh as fast as he could, the other cautioned him to stay, would it really help Túrin to join him, would it help others.

He went to the North marches. Cleared them of orcs. Conversed with friends, and tried to give no sign that he wondered if he would see them again.

(The conversations were_… _strange_._ The other wardens were full of light and laughter and good cheer and stories of their journeys. Beleg smiled and nodded, and pretended he felt the same.

He’d had these conversations before. Had that light and cheer, of good food and friends. But now—it slipped from his grasp.)

He returned to Menegroth, now and then, to resupply. (To make a little cache, a _foolish _cache he should never use, because he shouldn’t _leave_.)

(He kept the cache hidden in the cabin he and Túrin had last used.)

* * *

_The air was heavy, hot and sulphurous. It snaked along the ground like a living, malevolent thing._

_Everything in Angband had the air of malevolence._

_And Túrin was in there. Deep within its bowels, or strung up in its peaks—Beleg did not know. But he would find him._

_He had no chance of finding him._

_Angband was large, and hostile, and filled with enemies._

_Beleg stalked along a corridor. He was unarmed and unarmoured and he shouldn’t, but if Túrin was captured he had to find hom. The corridor was rough-hewn rock, pockmarked with the what was left of mined out ores, and full of blind corners that could have orcs come out of at any second._

_He walked on. Túrin had to be here somewhere, if he was just systematic about it—_

_Armoured feet echoed down the corridor. _Orcs. _Getting closer. Orcs who would see him and capture him and he’d be no use to Túrin and he’d be trapped—_

_He ran towards a mined-out vein, the air and heat making his steps toffee slow._

_The nearest vein was small, but deep. He could just fit in (and he had no time to find a better one.)_

_He crouched and crawled in._

_The rough stone tore his shirt, tore the skin of his back, but he had to keep going, the orcs were closer—_

_He reached the back of the vein._

_The armoured feet grew louder._

_He wanted to turn, to see how hidden he was, to watch and make sure the orcs actually passed him, but he had no room to turn._

_The armoured feet reached a crescendo, and slowly faded away._

_Beleg’s lungs rebelled, breathing fast and hard. Each heaving breath scraped him back against the roof, and was so loud, but he couldn’t stop himself._

_Silence._

_The orcs must be gone._

_He just had to turn around—_

_He couldn’t move. The vein was so small, he couldn’t move his legs or arms to back up or turn or making any movement._

_The rocks lay above him, heavy and confining and immovable._

_His arms burned with the effort of holding him up._

_He just had to move, he’d got in here, he had to be able to get out—_

_The rocks didn’t respond to his mental pleas._

_He had to get out get out get out get out get out—_

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder. “Beleg?”

He opened his eyes.

Hithui took a step back from him.

Moonlight shone through the windows of the march cabin.

Hithui only wore a nightshirt and an expression of concern on her face. “Are you alright?”

He blinked twice. His heart pounded in his chest, taking it’s time to realise he was in Doriath and not the Iron Hells.

“You were—making noises. Whimpering.”

“Oh.” He paused. “I guess Irmo must have something he wants me to think about then.” He gave a weak smile, in an attempt to fend off any requests for details, clarification.

Hithui frowned, and headed back to bed.

* * *

It would have been an easier story if the decision happened all at once. If, like a flash of lightning and with rock solid certainty, he decided that he must go seek Túrin again.

He ran out of loose ends to tie off. The bone deep ache, the twinge in his chest like someone was trying push his ribs to the sides, didn’t abate and only got stronger. He realised, piece by piece, that every day in Doriath was a choice, as much as leaving it was a choice.

The absence of Túrin grew more acute, when he noticed that it was by choice, his and Túrin’s, not by mere lack of knowledge like before, too.

Winter came. War stilled.

If he was ever going to leave, now would be the time.

And he did. Because he loved Túrin, and even if Túrin did not feel the same way (if Beren and Lúthien were only once, in all the ages of Arda to come), and he would not be separated from him, by distance or by wisdom.

There were other reasons, ones that made prettier rationalisations: Melian approved. If Túrin wished to do good, experienced help would be much needed.

But down at the heart of it, was love.

He packed his bags, filled with lembas and the odds and ends he stashed in his cache, and headed along the road southwest.

* * *

The road was frosty, the air misty. Beleg walked along it, pack on his back, and his breath condensing into white vapour in the air.

Mablung stepped onto the path, out of the trees.

Beleg startled. He thought he hadn’t been noticed, that he had just slipped away–

He looked Beleg up and down, his eyes landing on the pack under his cloak. “You look well prepared.”

“One must be, in winter.”

He cocked his head. “Our campaigns have stilled.” _So, where are you going?_

“All the better for travel. While the cold is dangerous, the orcs are more so, and I would not want to leave Doriath short-handed while there are battles to be fought.” Not entirely a lie. But omitting the fact he doubted he would return. (At least for a long while. He hoped.)

Mablung looked unconvinced. He was smart. Observant. Had to notice the wrapping up of his obligations, duties. This discussion about love. The person missing from his side, as crippling and obvious as the loss of a hand or a weapon.

But they’d walked down a similar road together, towards the Nirnaeth, with more of Thingol’s forgiveness than his permission. That counted for a lot.

Mablung said nothing else, but nodded, signalling his permission to go past.

Beleg nodded back, and said nothing either.

* * *

Beleg dragged himself towards the peak of Amon Rudh, snow crunching under his feet. Dark, fluffy clouds swirled overhead. The wind was bitter and strong enough that Beleg had to keep his face turned against it to breathe out, lest it force more air down his lungs.

The snow at least thinned here, sheltered by the peak, though he feared he may have to climb another cliff face.

Light flickered, out of the corner of his eye.

An overhang. And behind the overhang, a cave.

Beleg trotted towards it, trying not to slip. He had doubted that Túrin could even get on top of Amon Rudh, but who else would have fires up here?

There was no snow near the overhang, just rocks and small pillow plants and a feldmark buttercup, standing fluffy and determined against the wind.

He walked in.

There were many men, huddled round the fire, clutching their cloaks around them, shivering with cold. A dwarf stood apart, watching them suspiciously. And with his head down, talking to someone next to him, thin from winter’s chill but still recognisable (he could recognise him no matter what happened, there would always be something that marked him out), was Túrin.

Andróg –also sitting apart, facing the cave entrance, presumably on watch— startled so hard he nearly fell over backwards. “Fuck!”

Beleg laughed, and threw back his cloak. (He liked to think of himself as—generous. Temperate. Kind to all. But it was hard not to laugh when someone who tried to shame and hurt you made a fool of himself.)

“Stop fucking doing that! Haven’t you heard of—of—of not sneaking up on people?” Andróg spluttered, indignant and red faced.

Túrin stood up, and walked towards him, almost heedless of the fire and the men around him, until he was free of obstacles and broke into a run. He drew Beleg into an almost crushing embrace. “I missed you,” he murmured in Sindarin into his shoulder.

Andróg brushed the dirt off his backside. “Any plans to repeat that in something we can speak?”

“I missed you too” whispered Beleg.

Túrin gently lead him by the shoulder towards the mouth of the cave. “To avoid snarky ears,” he explained.

“Not listening ones?”

“If Andróg listened more—“ Túrin searched for a humorous spin, and failed. “Well, things would be better, if he did.”

Beleg huffed out a breath. Andróg could be much improved, on that he would agree, and his listening ability could be improved—but. Well. Sore point. (To put it lightly.)

He knelt down, and took the pack off his back. “I brought some supplies.”

Túrin squatted down next to him.

He reached in, and started pulling them out as named them. “Herbs for healing, bandages, the Helm of Hador—”

Túrin took it out of his hands, with reverence and awe and nostalgia shining in his eyes. He held it up to the light, the metal flashing in the flickering firelight.

“This is your own that I bring back to you, left in my keeping, but not forgotten, I see.”

Túrin’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Nearly forgotten. But much appreciated, nonetheless.” He looked away from the helm, and back into the pack, where the leaf wrapped packages pressed with the seal of the Queen sat. The line of his mouth pressed even thinner.

Beleg held one out to him. “The greatest gift that one who loves you still has to give.” (Whether he meant Melian, or himself—he didn’t know. Didn’t bother working it out.)

“I thank you for the helm of my fathers, that you kept in your keeping and returned to me.” He stared at the lembas, somewhere between anger and fear that the leaves would bite him. “But I will not accept gifts out of Doriath.”

Beleg—glared was too strong a word, and too weak. His gaze was harsher, colder, blanker, like the light reflecting off the snowbanks. “Gifts out of Doriath? Shall you return your arms, your teaching, then?” (_My own self_, he did not say.) “It was gifted to me, anyway, and if you do not wish to partake, then I shall not force you to. Eat it not, if it sticks in your throat, but others may be more hungry and less proud.” He glanced over at the Gaurwaith, huddled around the fire.

Túrin breathed out hard, and his shoulders deflated and the fire in his eyes quenched. He chuckled bitterly. “I’m surprised you returned, if this is the welcome I give you.” He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the ground. He turned back to face Beleg, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “From you, I will take whatever you are willing to give, even rebuke. But—I will not return to Doriath, and such counsel will not fall—fall on listening ears.”

It was not all that he wished for. He wished that Túrin would see the error of his ways, and return to Doriath with full haste.

But it was—it was enough. Túrin was by his side, and he was by Túrin’s, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud—a sudden shift, that made you realise how dark it had been before. He was with the one he loved, and at the point, whether that was returned did not matter. He was with Túrin.

He stood up, and offered an embrace.

Túrin accepted it whole heartedly, if less bone crushingly.

He missed being able to touch Túrin, the easy affection, the weight and warmth of him—

The wind blew through the entrance of the cave, bitter and almost whistling.

“Come,” said Beleg. “Let’s return to the fire, before you catch a cold.”

They shuffled back, not letting go of each other.

(Andróg’s eye roll was almost audible.)

Beleg stepped back, and surveyed the bandits.

There was some good news for the Gaurwaith: no one was at risk of starving to death—today. In the future, as the winter went on? It was a distinct possibility.

And there were more than a few with injuries that were not healing properly due to lack of nutrition.

He had plenty of lembas—but many people to feed, and an unknown stretch of time before him. He broke it into pieces sparingly, and offered it to the sick and injured first. Only small amounts, he did not want to hurt them with kindness, by feeding them too much at once.

The first he offered it to turned his nose up at it. “What makes you think I’ll eat that?”

“It’s filling. It’s good for you,” said Beleg. “You’re hungry.”

He looked to the side, thinking. “That’s true.” He took a piece, and nibble on the side gingerly. His eyes widened. “This… this is actually food.”

Beleg blinked incredulously. “Did you think I would feed you a rock?”

“It’s _sweet_,” said the bandit, half as a vague attempt at explanation, but mostly in wonder.

Word spread quickly that the lembas was definitely food, probably not poisoned, and probably a good idea to eat.

The dwarf surveyed the proceedings, arms crossed, leaning against a doorway.

Beleg held out a piece toward him. “And you, Master Dwarf?”

The dwarf wrinkled his nose like he had been offered cowshit, and turned on his heel.

Beleg cocked his head in confusion.

“That’s Mîm,” said Algund. “Grumpy bastard,” he muttered.

“He’s—cold,” said Túrin. “And not quick to make friends, or trust—elves in particular.” Túrin shrugged. “But’s he’s good folk, and wise.”

There was some unconvinced muttering from the rest of the Gaurwaith, but Beleg trusted Túrin’s judgment more than the rest of the bandits. Not that he necessarily expected to make friends with the dwarf, but if he was merely a cold fish—well, that wasn’t a terrible flaw. And quite possibly nothing that some deliberate friendliness and trustworthiness couldn’t fix. And Túrin at least sounded like he had got passed his shell.

After making sure no one would pass out from hunger, Beleg went around bandaging and stitching any wounds that were not already stiched, and fixing the handiwork of those that had been.

Ulrad hissed as Beleg stitched up a wound on his calf. (“Got it from some candleheath,” he said, which was a frankly bizarre story. Candleheath was sharp, but not enough rip a large flap of skin off and make a gouge half a centimetre deep.) “Why are you doing this?— Not that I’m mistrusting you, just making conversation so I don’t look at the leg—though that numbing herb works a treat, thank you Mister…?”

“Beleg.” He dodged the other question. It’s not that he couldn’t answer the first question without bringing up what happened in this past—but it wasn’t easy. And he wasn’t going to have that conversation while he and his conversation partner were distracted. “There’s a reasonable chance some more of it is on this mountain.”

“That’s good.” A pause, and then another hiss. “But—why are you doing this? We didn’t exactly treat you well, last time.”

Beleg watched his hands. He could probably do this without looking, or only with glances, but he liked the excuse to not have to make eye contact while he did this. Made it easier. “I don’t like seeing people hurt, not when I could fix it. No matter who they are. And you are Túrin’s friend. I am friend to all of Túrin’s friends, even if that sentiment is not—returned.”

“Sorry about—what happened. Shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“I… appreciate your apology.” He looked up at Ulrad, his face pale and his mouth twisted in a grimace of remorse. “On the condition that it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Ever.”

“Definitely going to clonk Andróg on the head if he tries anything stupid again. …and myself, if I let it happen again.”

“Mhhm.” _Like he hadn’t been the one with the torch. _Beleg tied the end of the thread up. “Don’t get exciteable and walk on it for the next couple of days. I don’t want to do it again.”

Ulrad nodded. “Uh, noted.”

* * *

Night fell, as did the temperature.

The Gaurwaith organised themselves into something between a pile and a huddle, to stay warm as they slept.

Beleg kept apart from it. He was a newcomer. Newcomers stayed on the edges. It was how it worked in pretty much every group, even more so when said newcomer was distrusted. And he was an elf, anyway, the chill of the margins was unlikely to harm him. And if he offered to stand watch—that may increase his trust. (Or not. But the offer was likely appreciated by whichever poor sod’s turn it was.)

The huddle tried form itself around Túrin, leaving a gap in the centre for him, but he declined, to the confusion of the rest of them.

He walked over to Beleg, and placed a hand on his arm. “Come over here,” he said softly.

“I’m happy to stand watch,” Beleg said.

Túrin shook his head. “Not on your first night.” He led Beleg over to the forming pile. “I would offer you my place in the centre—but they do not trust you enough yet.”

“Not unreasonably so,” Beleg said, trying to sound understanding and polite. Anyway, he wouldn’t exactly trust _them_ enough to willingly put himself in the middle of them. It was a moot point.

“It’s not really my spot to _give_. But—I will not leave you in the cold. And if I cannot bring you in, I shall join you on the edges.”

“You don’t have to. Honestly.”

Túrin shrugged, and lay his cloak down on the outer of the huddle, near the door. “I like to lead by example.”

They lay down together, back to back, Túrin’s cloak covering the floor and Beleg’s white cloak wrapped around them.

The quiet chatter of the bandits stilled, and turned to the soft breathing of sleeping men (and Ulrad’s snoring, which was at least quiet. By the standards of a war horn.)

“I’m glad you returned,” Túrin whispered in Sindarin. “I know what you did was—no small thing.”

_I would follow you to the ends of the earth. Into the depths of Angband. To the edge of the sea and then across it. _“Thank you. The Gaurwaith will do well with support, as will you, and I want to help—” His voice went quieter. “I missed you.”

Túrin’s back pressed closer to his. “I missed you as well.”

Túrin was quiet after, his breathing slowed, and Beleg thought he had fallen asleep until he spoke again. “How are the King and Queen faring?” he asked, his voice thick with something that may have been longing or regret.

“As well as can be expected,” Beleg said, after a moment’s thought. There was no easy way to thread the loyalties-that-should-not-conflict that he had, to deftly push the needle through without breaking the threads or hurting anyone’s feelings more than they already were. “I told them your choice. They—they don’t _understand_, but they _accept_ it. It’s your life, and you get to make your own choices in it.”

Túrin opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Sighed deeply. “Thank you for passing that on.”

_You’re welcome _seemed like the wrong answer. He did not reply, and Túrin truly fell asleep shortly after.

* * *

The rest of the winter was quiet. Most of the Gaurwaith grew to trust Beleg more, or at least consider them one of their own. Some were even apologetic.

Andróg was one of the exceptions, and took every opportunity to rail about how untrustworthy Beleg was, and should we listen to Túrin if he trusts that elf?

Mîm removed himself from the room whenever Beleg was there, burrowing deeper into the warren of Bar-en-Danwedh. Or sometimes, merely ignoring him, if he joined him and Túrin when they were conversing.

Spring sprung, with determined granite buttercups flowering as the snows retreated, and snow patch plants poking their heads out as meltwater soaked their soil.

Orcs travelled down from the north.

Small groups. Easy enough to deal with.

* * *

An orc band wandered down the road, wary—but only of the things ahead and behind of them. The road was set against small cliff, a metre or so tall, with snow gums at its top. They saw no need to watch the cliff; who would be there, anyway?

The Gaurwaith waited, hiding in the trees. They stayed put until half the orc band had passed.

Túrin leapt down on their flanks. He waded in, cutting and slashing and bringing orcs down with great efficiency. Andróg followed close behind, looking uncomfortable with his sword and like he’d much rather be further away– but if he had to be close, then he would stick close behind Túrin.

Beleg lined up shots, striking orcs in the eyes, in the joint between helmet and neckpiece, in gaps in poorly-patched mail. He whistled out the positions of orcs in Marchwarden code, alerting Túrin to those he hadn’t seen.

Túrin spun and leapt and slashed in response to each whistle.

The melee fighters punched a wedge through the orcs.

The orcs turned around, trying to turn the break in their lines into an encirclement.

Túrin would not let them get away with that, but Andróg? Andróg was worth nothing as an offhand defender.

He would have to fix that, wouldn’t he? Beleg ran and hopped off the cliff, still firing as he went, until he got into sword range. He drew Anglachel and cut his way through to Túrin.

They ended up almost back to back, protecting each other’s off hand with practiced ease.

The orcs attempted to encircle them, but before they got the chance, there weren’t enough orcs.

The orcish line broke. A few stragglers fled up the road, back to the north.

Beleg dropped Anglachel, and shot two, before they disappeared around a bend in the road.

Andróg collapsed onto his backside, exhausted and with terror no longer keeping him upright.

“Well, that was exciting,” Beleg said with good cheer.

Túrin nodded, and offered his forearm for the traditional clasp of the marchwardens.

Beleg returned it, and laughed, fey and wild with the thrill of a battle won. It had been a long time, nearly two years, since he had struck down orcs with Túrin.

It felt good to do it again.

* * *

As spring trundled along, scores of rabbits poked their heads out of warrens and set themselves to stripping the fields, and making merry while increasing their populations. They were a pest: eating cropland, eating the food of the larger prey species, undermining and eroding large sections of earth.

Their one saving grace was that they were _delicious_ pests.

In the morning, a small group of the Gaurwaith, including Andróg and Cadwaron– who had learned the route in and out of the Bar-en-Danwedh– announced their plans to hunt rabbits for dinner (and ideally, with extras for salting and smoking, many dinners to come.)

Algund looked up from his whetstone at Andróg. “What are you gonna do, _stab_ the rabbits?”

“Yes,” said Andróg drily. “I’m going to sneak up on them, pounce, and slit their fluffy little throats. –Or I’m going to be spotter and pack-carrier for the people with the bows.” He shrugged. “Whichever’s easier.”

Algund went back to his sharpening with a shake of his head and roll of his eyes.

Túrin looked up from the repair he was making to a pair of breeches, and nodded his assent to the plan. (To hunt rabbits, not to try and sneak up and stab them, Beleg assumed.) “Report back if you find any signs of orcs. There shouldn’t be any, but—” He shrugged.

“Maybe we’ll see if orc flesh is tasty,” said Andróg, with high and unjustified pride in his skills.

“Orc flesh would be very bad for you, if you ate it,” Túrin said.

Andróg muttered something in a human tongue that Beleg did not know, presumably something unsavoury, and left.

“Why is he not shooting the rabbits?” Beleg asked.

“He’s cursed,” said Algund.

“By Mîm,” Túrin added, for clarification.

But not enough. “Because–?”

Túrin put down the breeches, and sighed. “Some time after you left, some wanderers came too close to our camp for our watchman’s liking. The Gaurwaith gave chase, as much as I tried to hold them back, and Andróg, always so hasty, shot at them. Most of them missed, but one—It hit Khîm, one of Mîm’s sons. He died before Mîm could get to him. He still gave us use of his house—” (And Beleg predicted that there would be a story about how they ended up in Mîm’s house, and the fact Túrin seemed loath to tell it implied that it made no one look good) “—But he cursed Andróg to never use a bow again, lest it killed him.”

“And even Andróg has the sense to avoid death by killer rabbit,” Algund added.

“Killer rabbit _with a bow_,” added Raechon.

Túrin cast both of them a quick glare, before turning back to his sewing. “It is good that at least one part of Andróg’s—_rashness_—is curtailed. Though it would have been better if it had been curtailed earlier.” He said it with an air of self-recrimination, of looking back at his past and trying to see how he could have done it differently.

Throughout the day, more of Gaurwaith filtered out in scouting and hunting and gathering parties, with a few staying behind to repair and maintain the stores.

Ulrad poked his head out of doorway, into the main area. “We had three spare bows, right?”

“Yes,” said Túrin, who was now fixing a shirt who’s arm-seam had ripped.

“It’s just— we’ve only got two now. Do you know how took it?”

“I’ll ask the others when they return,” Túrin said, leaving the ‘and upbraid them for taking things without letting anyone know’ unsaid.

There was a pause, as each one of them ran through the possible people who might not have a bow, and which of those might steal one.

“How much do you believe in curses, Ulrad?” asked Algund, half-jokingly.

* * *

When the hunting party returned, there was little need for upbraiding or beration.

They came carrying Andróg in a bloodstained cloak, sweating as they heaved him through the door.

Túrin sprang up. “What happened?”

“We went hunting, where there _shouldn’t_ have been any orcs—”

“But there were some, and we ran into each other and surprised each other—”

“And the orcs got unsurprised first—”

Túrin seemed like he was about to tell them they should have reported back sooner, but he stopped himself.

Beleg bustled over, and took Andróg off the group.

His face was pale, and sheened with sweat. He was conscious, but exhausted—the lack of screaming was likely because he did not have enough energy to do so.

And sticking out of his abdomen, an orcish arrow.

Beleg laid him on the ground, cut away the shirt around the wound. The skin around it was already going purplish-green. A poisoned orc arrow, then. Blood dribbled slowly from the wound.

“Did he take a bow?” Túrin asked the rest of the hunting party.

“…Yes.”

Andróg breathed shallow and fast.

Túrin shook his head. “It’s Mîm’s curse, then.”

Beleg took Andróg’s knife from his belt, and put the hilt between Andróg’s teeth. “Apologies for this,” he said. (With maybe less sincerity than he would have liked.) Keeping an orc arrow in indefinitely—was a recipe for disaster. He quickly heated his own knife in the fire, to clean and to cauterise. He cut the wound just enough that he could pull free the barbed arrow with only a whisper of resistance.

Andróg did scream then. An exhausted, muffled one, but a scream nonetheless.

Beleg packed the wound, with herbs that counteracted poison, and herbs that counteracted infection, and herbs that just packed it to stopped bleeding.

Túrin knelt beside Beleg and Andróg. “There may be little point. The curse of a Dwarf is strong—”

“That won’t stop me from trying. If there is something I can do, I will do it. Even for him.”

Túrin nodded, but still kept his kneeling vigil.

* * *

Night fell. Beleg sat by Andróg’s side, hands on his knees, watching his chest rise and fall. It was strangely exhausting work, for all its stillness. Watching to make sure nothing happened, that nothing suddenly went wrong, staying ready to leap in at a moment’s notice if something did. And doing that all after the more obviously exhausting labour of making sure he didn’t bleed out, or succumb to the poison.

Andróg’s breathing was shallow. From the blood loss and the exhaustion, most likely. It was a… reasonable rate of breath, not alarming in and of itself, but something to watch.

Mîm loomed over them, standing in front of Beleg with Andróg sandwiched between them. He was never voluble, or cheery—but this silence had a weight to it. A weight of anger, hidden and restrained by bristly beard and eyebrows.

Beleg was too tired to deal with this malarkey. To deal with grumpy dwarves that did not like him and did not seem willing to expend the effort to be _polite_. “Is there something I can do to help, Master Mîm?” he said, trying to force chipperness and good cheer into his sleep-slurred voice.

“Were you told about the curse?”

“On Andróg? Yes.”

Mîm crossed his arms. It was almost funny—a gesture of minor annoyance coupled with the restrained rage of his face. “And yet you still heal him.”

Beleg’s head slumped into his hands. He was too tired for this conversation, too tired to deal with tricky topics with someone who seemed to want to dislike him. “I’m not letting someone die of treatable injuries.”

“Perhaps things would have been better if you had joined the Gaurwaith in earlier days.” _Maybe you could have saved my son, rather than this poor wretch_, said the silence after his speech. (He’d heard the tale in more detail from Túrin, while he was working on Andróg’s wounds. They’d always have been too late for Khim, even if Beleg had been there. But grief never obeyed reason.)

“Rather enough people have died of arrow wounds, yes,” said Beleg.

Mîm inhaled sharply, wrath whistling like a boiling teakettle. Taking it as insult, as placing his son’s murderer over his son.

Which was not Beleg’s intention. Perhaps placing Andróg on the same level as Khim (_maybe_), but not higher.

It didn’t matter. He was too tired to explain, to shape his words into contrition and diplomacy and tact. It was true. _Enough people have died of arrow wounds_.

“The curse will bite again,” said Mîm. “Mark my words: _the curse will bite again._” He strode out of the room, raging and enraged.

Beleg slumped further, before being startled by a moan from Andróg.

Andróg turned over, and went back to sleep. Not an emergency. Good.

Túrin wandered over. “Thank you for helping him. I know you two don’t—”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Beleg said, cutting him off. He wasn’t too tired for talking to Túrin—but navigating Túrin’s guilt over Beleg’s first run-in with Gaurwaith, mixed with his love for the bandits—not now. Not now. (Not ever, if possible.)

“Still, it’s good you did it. Not everyone does things because they’re right.” He turned away from Beleg, either looking at the Gaurwaith, or out through the entrance of the cave. “More should, but.”

“I’m just doing my bit, then” said Beleg, smiling weakly.

“Go rest. I can watch over him, and wake you up if anything is beyond me.”

Beleg thought to protest—but no, he needed sleep. And less pressingly, but still there, get away from Andróg. He wasn’t going to let him die, but his skin still crawled if he had to be near him too long. “Thank you.”

“Stand up and go sleep.”

Beleg huffed out a laugh and peeled himself up off the floor.

* * *

He didn’t sleep.

He spent the whole night watching the fire burn to embers, and watching the Gaurwaith fall to slumber.

* * *

The next day, Andróg seemed—better. Not at imminent risk of dying, for the moment.

Beleg still kept a close eye on him.

“Come on, get it out of your system,” Andróg said. His voice was bitter, but still quiet from his exhaustion and injuries.

Beleg cocked his head, confused.

“Laugh at me, berate me, lecture me—whatever it is you elves do when someone does something stupid. I’m sure you guys do _something_.”

Beleg frowned. “I’m not going to berate someone who nearly died.”

“Not even someone like me?” He didn’t say it piteously, or like he expected to be pitied. He said it like he was Beleg’s enemy, and of course one would mock an enemy. That’s what he’d do, so it must be what Beleg would do, right?

“I would suggest that you don’t set any more curses on your head, for your own sake at least, but it’s not like you need to be taught more of a lesson.”

“But you’re still going to heal me.” He pointed to his own chest. “_Me_.”

“I’m not going to let someone I can save die. Even if I don’t particularly _like _them.” Which, well, that was an understatement. But the first part was true enough

Andróg made a face, scrunching his forehead, like he was puzzling something out, some idea that did not fit into his schema of the world. It didn’t last long—he may not have been about to die, but he nearly had, and was injured. He fell asleep quickly, after the exertion of a short conversation.

* * *

Andróg healed. Beleg watched over him. Túrin came over, to converse with both of them.

Mîm loomed. Túrin acted as a shield between Mîm and the rest of them.

Andróg recovered further. He could sit up. Then stand up. Drag himself to the privy.

(“I can bring a bucket over to you,” Beleg offered, as Andróg shuffled a few steps and then had to sit down again. “Or carry you there.”

“No! I’m going to do this _myself_.” Andróg peeled himself back off the floor. “And stop mentioning the privy, if you want me to actually get there.”)

He reached the point where Beleg didn’t need to hover over them. Beleg was glad when that happened, and he guessed Andróg was too.

It took time. But Andróg recovered.

* * *

Beleg checked the wound. It was more or less just a piece of scar tissue at this point, but it was still at a stage where he liked to keep an eye on it, in case pocket of infection hid inside.

“It’s… _nice_ of you to do this,” said Andróg, with the tone of someone who wished he could have any other conversation, but had realised this one was impossible to avoid.

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” said Beleg matter-of-factly, poking the wound.

Andróg hissed when the cold finger touched him. “I mean, after our first meeting and all.”

“Yes, yes it is nice of me. But I’m a good person, and I like leading by example.” He smiled, false-bright and with far too much tooth on display.

Andróg made an expression somewhere between ‘annoyed,’ ‘embarrassed’ and ‘I have a frog in my mouth.’ “I didn’t really make the—best choice there. Seeing as—yeah.”

If Andróg wanted explicitly stated forgiveness, he could give an explicit apology. “No, it wasn’t. And you had plenty of opportunities to stop at the time, which you did not take.” Beleg pushed his shirt back down. “If you have an infection, it is very subtle,” he said, changing the topic.

The frog in Andróg’s mouth evidently had migrated to his throat, considering that he shut up.

* * *

Summer rolled through, as their campaign against the orcs rolled along.

Men came from around the surrounding country side to render their aid. Some were veterans of the Nirnaeth, not willing to lose another inch to Morgoth and Angband. Others were the children of those who had not returned from that great battle, reckless and restless, hungering for glory and with little to lose.

Elves too joined them, Noldo and Sinda both, but fewer than the Men.

Beleg and Túrin travelled out to a camp, to discuss strategy. (And to hearten them with the sight of their leader. An army marched on its morale, and this was quickly becoming something rather like an army.)

It was a newer camp, one that had only recently joined, but even so, the discussion of strategy passed quickly.

They still stayed awhile, anyway. They claimed it was because the journey was long enough, and the day late enough, that night would fall before they reached the Echad I Sedryn (as the encampment on Amon Rudh had been called. Beleg could not tell whether that name was optimistic or sarcastic. Probably optimistic. But with Andróg’s existence–) Honestly, it was to meet and mingle and bring good cheer while the summer campaign still ran well.

One of the Men, a female one, watched him through thinned eyes. “You’re an elf.”

“Yes, I am.” Because, well, what else would he say? It _was_ true.

She frowned. “Haven’t seen many elves around here.”

Túrin joined the conversation. “There are many elves, in the other camps in among, if not in here. Though Beleg is the only elven of the Faithful.”

“By mere happenstance,” said Beleg. It was odd to be pointed out so. He was the only elf, yes, but that was because the ‘Faithful’ were not friendly to them as a general rule, nor did their purposes match those of the elves, before they gained their new name.

The Man cocked her head.

“I was a friend of his, before this happened. I followed him,” Beleg said,

She shrugged, taking that as answer enough.

Another man, a male one, looked up from sharpening a knife, and took up the conversation. “Noldo or sinda?”

_Well, _why not_ make it more personal? _“Sinda, from Doriath.”

He scoffed. “Doriath? People don’t _come out_ of Doriath. They stay behind the Girdle.”

“And are of no help,” added another.

“I heard they only sent two people to the Nirnaeth.” She held up two fingers for emphasis. “And they probably exiled them afterwards.”

Beleg frowned in bemusement at their understanding of Doriath, and his complete lack of any idea of how to continue this conversation. Any defence of Doriath would have sounded like mere patriotism, and explaining that he was not exiled would require explaining _why_ he was out here. Following Túrin was the reason—but it was hard to explain in a way that got the depth across.

He would follow Túrin anyway. To Angband, to Morgoth’s throne itself—to his own death, even.

Túrin stepped in to defend him. It was an odd sight. Though he was merely speaking, he stood like he was braced for a shield blow. “Doriath has long been closed, yes, but it is opening. _I _have been there.”

Beleg nodded. “That was how I met him.”

“It is opening slowly, yes,” he said, his voice projected and declarative, reaching out past their little circle and further out into the camp. “But they are elves. They work slow, to us. And they must first think of the protection of their own people.” The other men opened their mouths to argue about whether they really had to think of the protection of their own first, but Túrin held up a hand to stay them. “But not all do. It would be wrong to be ungrateful to one who had and does fight for the protection of Men, who left to fight in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and who fought at Beren’s side during the Hunt of the Wolf.”

“He’s _that_ guy?”

“They’re the _same person_?”

Beleg held up his hands, in mild embarrassment. “I would not play up my part. I was but one soldier in the battle, and during the hunt, Man and Maia did more than I.”

* * *

The days may have been hot and sticky with harsh sunlight and humidity, but at night the temperatures dropped, and the wind became chill and the air became icy. The huddle continued, even if it spread out a bit.

Túrin never returned to his spot in the middle. He remained on the outer edges with Beleg. He claimed it was because he did not want to take advantage of his position as leader, and while the relinquishing of the central, warmer spot was mostly symbolic, it affirmed his commitment.

Beleg did not entirely believe that.

He stared up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the Dwarven carvings.

Night time seemed to be the time for self -doubt. Some side effect of the day’s exhaustion, and the stillness, letting one’s mind run wild with recrimination and anxiety.

(He’d had his fair share of self-doubt. He’d had his fair share of sleepless nights.)

Had this been a good idea? Was being at Túrin’s side _worthy_, _worth it_?

He loved him. Deeply. The way an elf could only ever love one person—But that didn’t make joining him right. So many people had fallen for people they should not have, and it was a tragedy each time. Sometimes following them still was the right course of action, but not always.

He had abandoned his post in the Marches. With no message or warning, save what Mablung decided to convey. (Which was not likely to be much.) He had joined a group of bandits, who’s only restraint was Túrin, and only when he was standing next to them.

Túrin allowed Andróg and Ulrad to stay. Even after what they did. And shouldn’t keeping them at his side be fault enough to turn away from him?

(But he had improved them. Made them better people. As long as he was standing next to them, they were not completely terrible. And the same was true with the rest of the Gaurwaith.)

And Túrin was running out the course of his life as a leader of bandits, at best fighting foolishly against the dark. He shouldn’t be here. He should be in Doriath, and Beleg should not helping him be here—

But Túrin had said he didn’t wish to go to Doriath. That was that then. Beleg wasn’t going to kidnap him.

…

Just as staying in Doriath had been a choice, so was staying at Túrin’s side.

Should he stay, and help Túrin, even if what Túrin wanted was foolish?

(He wanted to stay. ‘Want’ was not the same as ‘should’—but he wanted.)

Was there anything that would take him from Túrin side? Any task too great?

It was a frightening thought. He couldn’t think of anything that would stop him, no task where he would say ‘I cannot do this, I will go no further.’ If Túrin wanted him to kill an innocent, maybe—But Túrin would not ask him that. It was a pointless answer.

He couldn’t think of anything within the realm of possibility, where he would not follow Túrin.

If someone asked him to pluck a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown, for Túrin’s sake? He would do it. If Túrin was captured in Angband, he would go to rescue him.

He would fail. He would die. That would not matter. Success or failure did not matter.

He would at least be at Túrin’s side.

* * *

It felt wrong to describe a dwarf as ‘skulking’. They seemed too… solid for it.

But Mîm skulked. He skulked in the way a badger would skulk around its den; it may be confident, and on its own territory, but it still wasn’t going to let you see it moving about.

Mîm skulked through the back passages and store rooms of Bar-en-Danwedh.

Beleg found him by chance, as he readied their summer stores for autumn, and winter after. “Mîm, do you know how much firewood we have?”

Mîm spun around, and _glared_.

Beleg blinked. Mîm’s general way of looking at things was glaring at them, but this was still a rather harsh glare. One that he found was in particular reserved for him.

Mîm stayed silent and glaring.

“We’re about to send some people out to gather more,” Beleg said by way of explanation. “And it would be ideal to not gather more than we will need.”

“Not for you, curse-bender,” growled Mîm, and he walked away.

Not for him to find out? To _have_? Beleg was left there, blinking in confusion.

Túrin popped around a corner thirty seconds later. “Have you checked our stores of firewood, before we send people out?”

Beleg crossed his arms, somewhere between amused and annoyed. “I just asked Mîm that.”

“And he said?”

“He didn’t answer. Called me a curse-bender.”

Túrin pinched the bridge of his nose. “He is slow to trust–”

“He trusted you quick enough.”

“And I’ve tried to bring him around, but he—he listens more to actions, more than words. And while your actions are noble–”

“Not to his eyes.”

Túrin nodded. “Give him time?” he requested. “Soon enough you’ll save his life, or something, and he’ll be more friendly.”

* * *

Beleg would have said he was content. Being at Túrin’s side was enough.

It did not stop the nightmares, of something pulling him away from Túrin’s side, of being trapped and not being able to get to him, of being so close but not able to escape to reach him. It did not stop the exhaustion of the mornings afterwards, where he had to drag his rhaw[1] like a shell that was two times too large for him.

It did not stop him having to watch Andróg, watch in case he tried something.

But he was with Túrin, standing by his side.

He was content.

He would repeat it like a mantra until he was.

* * *

Túrin and Beleg sat outside the Echad, watching the sunset fade into a pink-purple twilight. The sky turned from the clear brightness of summer to the clouds of autumn, but the clouds were sparse and still lacked any snow-fluffiness.

Túrin leaned back against a standing-stone of granite, dropped by an ancient river of ice. “You seem—maudlin. Ill at ease.”

Beleg sighed. “Our recent victories seem too easy. Like they were more tests or feints, rather than anything serious. I fear what will happen when Angband gets serious.”

Túrin huffed out a harsh breath. “Perhaps Angband is serious, but we are more organised than them, more courageous, more righteous.”

“I can say we are more righteous with confidence, but the rest—”

He waved a hand out, gesturing out towards the far flung camps, to the country itself, flourishing and free of orcs. “Is this not going well?” He was red faced—not angry, or offended, but a near kin of that.

“It is now. And may be for some time, but—”

Túrin’s frown deepened. “But what?”

“Winter. And then another year after that.”

“And many more years, surely.”

“For those who live to see it, if we are not whittled down to none. And then Angband’s Wrath, in the coming years. We have done Angband an injury—“ He held up his hand, fingers splayed. “But it is mere burnt fingertips—the rest of the hand will soon follow, and in greater force.” The fingers closed, crushing an imaginary insect.

“Angband’s Wrath is not an ill thing,” Túrin said, looking younger (like a Man, with no experience and no history and no heed to the patterns of Fate and Doom–) and more glory-hungry than Beleg had seen since he was a youth in Doriath. “Is Angband’s wrath not our joy and delight? And if we merely burn the fingertips of a god—”

“He is not a god,” Beleg corrected.

“Even so.”

The pinks and oranges started to fade, and the west turned dark.

“What else would you have me do?” Túrin said, facing the horizon.

Beleg looked out too. It was easier to say this, with no eye contact. “You know my answer. But you have already said you will not follow me there— “_and I will not leave your side _“—so I shall not suggest it. But—” He turned back to him. “Say we last through the winter. How do we maintain this? You are building an army, and that is a great achievement—but how will we feed them? Arm them? Defend the people feeding and arming us? How will defend ourselves, as secrecy fails and our numbers grow?”

“Amon Rudh could house many,” he said, reiterating an old argument.

Beleg shook his head. “Amon Rudh is isolated, besiegable. Good for a small group keeping a watch. Bad for a city.” He turned back to the horizon, to the steep drop down the Bald Hill. The candleheath grew in long rows, as natural walls and snares. The stunted snowgums clung to the tree line, enough to fool someone on the ground into thinking there was cover, while still being obvious from the summit. But there was little food, and the only source of water was stagnant peat bogs. “Things are going well now. But for how long?”

“If we fail, we fail.” Those were words that said to any other, Túrin would turn into a rousing speech. But here, with him, the words were quiet, but assured. “I hope to lead my people in a worthy fall, but it is their choice to stand with me. I will stand against Morgoth. Even if I only burn his fingertips, if it is for only a few years, those are years he cannot use the southward road.”

Beleg smiled, despite himself. “I admire your hope, and the high weight you place on such a few years.”

“I’m a Man; it’s what we do.” He smiled too, subtle and guarded. “But come, let us speak of lighter topics. If we have years, we certainly have an afternoon.”

* * *

They had two months.

* * *

A horn blew from the top of Amon Rudh. _Enemies approaching. _Another, higher blast. _Orcs._

Beleg set his mouth into a thin line. This was inevitable. They would have been found eventually. He’d expected it would happen after winter, but he knew this would happen.

The rest of Gaurwaith did not seem to have expected it, seemed surprised, but they readied themselves with—if not _practiced _efficiency, efficiency nonetheless.

Beleg grabbed his bow. Anglachel and his quiver already sat on his hip.

The Gaurwaith jogged out to the flat area just outside the cave entrance, Túrin taking the lead. Beleg stayed a pace behind him. They’d want the archers up front first, anyway.

The orcs charged up the hill. They comfortably outnumbered the Gaurwaith—but they were running up a hill. And almost certainly taking the slow route, through the maze of goat tracks up Amon Rudh. This was a disaster, they’d been found—but this was a mitigatable disaster. The time it took the orcs to run up the hill would be time enough to thin their numbers to something _very_ manageable.

“Fire!” Túrin commanded.

Beleg notched an arrow, and fired.

One orc down.

Again.

Another down.

Among the rest of the Gaurwaith, more arrows hit than missed.

The orcs still came.

Fast.

Too fast.

They were taking all the twists and turns to come up the quick way up Amon Rudh, the way that didn’t involve scrambling over cliff faces. _How did they know that? Someone must have told them–_

That was a thought for another time.

They were coming up fast.

Fast enough that they’d only barely been thinned out, even with the height advantage.

Beleg fired faster, as fast as he could, sacrificing accuracy for just bringing as many down as he could.

One, two, three—down.

There were still too many.

They were getting closer. Close to the entrance.

Túrin eyes darted, scanning the numbers, calculating and calculating again because the result made no sense, how could they be here so fast, height was an advantage–

There was no pause by the archers, but there was an in-draw of breath, as the orcs came closer and closer, so many of them, and each man calculated his luck in close quarters against that many foes.

They orcs reached the last run, before entrance.

“Retreat!” Túrin cried.

This was less practiced. They’d barely ever had to run this year. Shoot orcs, yes. But run from them?

Some scrambled back into the entrance. Others climbed the steps up to the summit, trying to keep the height advantage for as long as possible.

The orcs fired back. Their bows were short ranged, but they’d still put a hole in you. Men fell from the steps, shot in the chest, in the shoulder, the eye, landing with a wet thud in front of their friends.

More scrambled back to the entrance.

The orcs reached the flat area.

Arrows flew, more from the orcs’ side than theirs. Orcs drew their swords, striking at the flanks nearest that last run of goat track.

Beleg stayed behind, still firing, trying to buy as much time and orc blood as possible.

He ran back to the cave at the last second.

“Quick, help me with this,” Túrin said, standing next to the rock near the cave entrance.

(The one Beleg had convinced him to place there, in case the worst happened. He didn’t feel vindicated, he was too adrenaline-drunk for that, but it was close enough.)

Beleg sprinted to the other side of it, and _pushed_.

The rock scraped along the ground, growling like a wounded bear. It crawled forward.

The orcs came closer. Their feet pounded the dirt, they whooped war cries and bashed sword against shield.

Beleg put all his weight, all his strength, into his shoulders and _pushed._

They needed something between them and the orcs, if they got in it would be a massacre_, move rock, **move**._

It rumbled into place.

The light dropped, and with it, their hope.

Beleg leaned back against it, sweaty and exhausted.

Túrin shook himself—a gesture of trying to stay upright, stay moving, lest he collapse from the exertion.

Even with the rock in the way, the footfalls of the orcs were loud. They were muffled and bounced through the cave, in a way that made them seem to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“We’re trapped,” Túrin said, matter of fact, not panicking yet, but definitely wishing for any input that may be helpful.

“No,” said Andróg.

Beleg turned to him.

Somehow in the melee he’d picked up an orc bow, and a quiver. (_Or had it been earlier?_ Beleg thought.) He must have feared for his life, to try again even with the curse. “I found some stairs in here that’d take us to the summit.”

Beleg searched for the words to advocate caution, _would going to the summit even help us against those numbers?, _some way to imply _I don’t trust Andróg, the orcs had to find that route somehow—_He didn’t have the chance to say anything.

Túrin spoke, with barely any pause for thought. “Take us there.”

They jogged up the stairs, running up the cramped left-hand spiral, they press of people making it airless and gloomy—More so than the Bar-en-Danwedh did usually.

Beleg emerged out of a hole, onto the summit of Amon Rudh.

Orcs pounded up the stairs. “Hey!” one of them shouted.

Beleg shot him.

“Stop them getting up the stairs!” Túrin cried.

The first line of orcs clambered up the last few steps.

Beleg fired at them.

It was futile. The Gaurwaith’s line broke almost instantly, as soon as they got out of the stairs. Orcs surrounded them, and they no time to organise, to form ranks or lines anything.

The orcs spread out, taking advantage of the confusion and chaos.

Beleg lost Túrin in the melee and the shouting and the flash of steel.

The orcs pressed closer.

He dropped his bow, and drew Anglachel.

Strike. Parry. Thrust. Parry strike thrust _thrust strike parry parry_—

Something punched him in the gut. He doubled over, air pushed out his lungs, his body a sharp spike of pain as his nerves tried in vain to find the source.

Túrin leaped towards him, and stabbed the orc through the chest.

Beleg un-doubled, and breathed. Was about to say thank you, but more orcs came, and he didn’t have the time or breath to say it.

Túrin ran off to help another of the Gaurwaith. The dragonhelm shone gold—golder than it had ever before, sparkling in the noon sun and flashing with the glints of arms. 

Beleg struck down the orc that tried to stab Túrin from behind.

The orcs pressed them back.

Beleg scanned the Gaurwaith’s numbers. He couldn’t get a count, couldn’t hold everything in place in the whirl to number them off, but the absences stood out. Algund. Ulrad. Andróg. Maybe hidden behind a pack of orcs. More likely missing. More likely dead.

The press continued, pushing them back and surrounding and encircling them

Beleg made them fight for every inch they pushed him back—but there were many of them, and not that many inches.

He slammed into one of the standing stones at the centre of the summit, pink granite digging into his back.

The Gaurwaith were few enough to make a count. Ten, including him and Túrin, and _thank Eru that Túrin had survived at least that long_.

It wouldn’t be much longer. No nobility of purpose, or bravery, or sheer stubbornness, could help at this point. There were so many orcs, at least three times their number. There was no way to make it work. No way to turn the odds in their favour, even if fate gave them its most radiant smile and its greatest favour.

At least he’d taken Túrin this far. Helped him live this long.

_(And he would be content.)_

The orcs surrounded them.

The Gaurwaith fought back, as best as they could, swords dancing as they parried, with no time to make even an attempt at a thrust.

Nine left. Eight. Seven.

He had the greetings he would make to Mandos, the formal thanks and request for hospitality on his lips, as he struck down more orcs.

Six. Five. Four.

Anglachel burned hot in his hands, as hot as it must have been when its metal fell at Eöl’s feet.

Three.

Orc blood burned on his hands. Would this be his last strike? This one? _Oh Doomsman, Keeper of the Dead, except my thanks, and my penitence for a journey so late made—_

Tw—

Something fell on him. A net. He struggled to free his arms, cut the cords with a sword.

It entangled him, snarled, twisted on itself.

Another net caught Túrin. The links grabbed around his ankles. He tried to step out, but it wrapped and wrapped and the orcs were on him. They picked up the net, picked him up, and marched off.

Beleg reached out—an automatic gesture, there was nothing he could do, no options left–

Something slammed him down. He fell, scraping along the dirt. Weight pressed down all over him, holding him to the ground. The orcs pinned him, held him still. Why were they leaving him here and taking Túrin? What design of Morgoth was this?

They tied ropes to his wrists and ankles.

He struggled, only getting more caught in the net for his troubles. The ropes burned and scraped on bare skin.

He bit at them, for lack of anything else to do, but they stayed clear of his mouth.

One sat on his shoulder blades, heavy and hot and stopping him from getting a full breath.

They tied the ropes to pins. The hammer rang harsh and metallic as they pummelled the pins through the rock.

The pinning orc stood up. The orcs, in general, paused. Deciding. Pondering. Thinking. (And a thinking orc was the worst kind.)

One of them cut the net away from him, and then they left, along with band carrying Túrin.

So, the orcs left on the summit for someone’s benefit. But who’s? It had to have been whoever had betrayed the Gaurwaith. Who else would have the orcs done anything _for_?

Who would betray them, and consider Beleg a fair prize?

Who had led them up the stairs to their defeat? Who had gone missing? Who had an orc bow?

Who had a _thing_ about trapping him?

“I’ve been looking forward to this for some time, elf.”

He looked up.

Mîm walked towards him, carrying a whetstone and a long knife.

…

It wasn’t what he had expected, but it made a certain sense. He’d never liked Beleg much. He didn’t think he disliked him so much he would do _this_—But Mîm kept his council. He could’ve hated him this much without showing it at all.

He loomed over Beleg, the toes of his boots brushing against his ribs. “Elf of Doriath, dwarf-eater, curse-bender, heart-bender, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I have _never eaten a dwarf.” _A pause. “And I have little clue what a heart-bender would be.”

“One who bends a friend’s heart away from their purpose, bends their minds, bends their—” He gestured with the whetstone in a circular fashion.

Beleg had never seen Mîm this chatty or this voluble, and he seemed rather out of practice with it.

He dropped the whetstone with a deep chuckle, and started sharpening. “Oh, I shall enjoy this.”

Beleg restrained the urge to bang his head against the ground. This was—_pointless. _The last time was pointless. This didn’t need to happen to him twice!

Something moved in the distance, near the top of the stairs. Something low to the ground, dragging itself forward. Armoured, and humanoid, but it was hard to make out much detail—

A brown-red ponytail fell over its shoulder.

_Andróg_.

Andróg, alive. Andróg, filled with more orc arrows than a training dummy, with more quills in his back than an echidna. His sword scraped along the gravel, the metal grating as it was dragged. He crawled, slowly, painfully, arm over arm, towards Beleg and Mîm.

Mîm kept sharpening, and hummed an offputtingly jaunty tune. He hadn’t noticed Andróg.

Beleg wasn’t going to let him. “We never had to be enemies.”

“We never did, no,” Mîm shook his head. “I could have forgiven you for what your kin had done, if you _truly_ never participated in the hunts—but trying to break a curse? A curse laid on the one who killed my son? _No_. _That_ is unforgiveable. _That _deserves a death in return. A slow one, as slow as my son’s.”

“You could leave me here. That would take the right amount of time.” He would have gestured at his stab wound, but he didn’t have the range of motion. (If he could heal himself, clean it and staunch the slow bleeding, he could survive. But here, pinned in the sun? Oh, he had a few hours, at most, before the exposure or the blood loss got him.)

“Some things you have to do yourself. If it pleases you, elf, I would give Andróg the same fate if he had survived.”

Andróg got closer. Within hearing range of a dwarf.

Beleg kept his face carefully neutral.

Mîm still didn’t notice.

Andróg sounded like a wounded bull, crashing through metallic brush, and still Mîm didn’t notice.

He sharpened his knife, the scrape almost in tune with the drag of Andróg’s sword. But there was no way that sound could cover the other for much longer.

Beleg tried to think of something to say, to hide the sound, because Mîm certainly would start hearing this soon, but his mind went blank from the pain and the blood loss and the sharp glint of Mîm’s knife in the sun and the bite of the ropes—

Andróg swung his sword. He was barely in range. His swing was weak. He barely scratched Mîm, broke through cloth and skin and nothing else.

Mîm screamed. Turned. And saw a man who should be dead, with hate in his eyes and a much longer blade.

He screamed again, and fled, dropping out of sight as he darted away off the summit.

Andróg looked worse up close than he did far away, when he was just a fleshy practice dummy hauling itself forward. Sweat sheened his face, his arms, diluting the blood on his skin to a pale pink. His breath came hard and ragged, each gasp of air only barely enough, his eyes shrunk to pin pricks from the strain.

Beleg watched, stunned and still trying to process what happened, the idea of Andróg alive, and not a traitor, and dying.

Andróg hauled himself forward, half-screaming with frustration and exhaustion and pain. He sawed through the ropes holding Beleg’s right hand.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t—mention it,” he said through gritted teeth, as he sawed through the left ropes.

He dragged himself to Beleg’s feet, each inch a battle that he won by the skin of his teeth, and cut through the last two ropes.

Beleg sat up, freed, and shook his limbs out.

Andróg collapsed face first onto the floor. “There. Paid off as much as I could of my debt. Not all of it. Not enough time. Shame about that.”

There was something about his phrasing—it didn’t seem like just the debt of Beleg healing his wounds, but of their first meeting. It wasn’t an apology, but it was something.

Beleg examined him, to see how grave his wounds are. “That might not be true, I may be able to help you—” The trail of blood behind him was thick and long. If that was the only blood he had lost, Beleg would fear for his life, and he highly doubted it was the total. He had at least seven arrows in him. Five in his back, and two in his stomach, their shafts bent by his weight on the ground, and the heads surely being driven in by it. With so many arrows, one of them had to have pierced something vital, something the Beleg could not fix, despite all his arts.

He deflated.

Andróg turned his head to face him. “Don’t bother. I know when a wound is mortal.”

“—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You healed me once already.” He smiled weakly, a quick shiver of bravado. “I can’t expect it to always work out like that.”

“Is there—anything I can do?” It was hard to hate, or bear ill will to, a dying person. Especially one who had—attempted to apologise. Even if he hadn’t said the word ‘sorry’, rescue probably counted for more than that, especially in such adverse circumstances. And even if that were not the case—there were somethings that you did for the dying, no matter who they were.

“Put me in the sun. May as well die warm.”

Beleg slung him over his shoulder, trying not the aggravate either of their wounds, and only mostly succeeding. It was a hard walk, to the nearest warm rock with the sun shining on it. The muscles around his stab wound could only _just _hold his own weight, let alone that of another’s. He walked nearly double, trying not to drop Andróg, trying not to fall over.

He didn’t know how long the walk took. Too long.

By the time he propped Andróg up against the stone, he had already breathed his last.

Beleg slumped against the stone, panting. His wound throbbed. _I should fix that, _he thought, distantly. He pulled his mail over his head, getting his arms tangled within in it. Halved rings, cut by orc swords, fell off and jangled against the ground.

Their swords cut through his mail. Their forging had gotten better. stronger. Likely from stealing from and of the Noldor.

He rolled up his gambeson, and looked down at his stomach. The wound was—survivable, as he had predicted. Bad, but survivable. An angry red wound, but only through the muscle, not to viscera. It had half clotted, and blood smeared across his stomach from the movement of his mail.

He felt through his healing kit with numb fingers, for needle and thread and rough linen to clean the wound.

He hissed as he ran the linen over his stomach, pulling at the edges of the wound. The bleeding started again, blood soaking into the linen.

He threw it on the ground next to him. He had no way of washing it, and it was thoroughly soiled at this point.

It took three attempts to thread the needle, missing the eye completely the first time and the second time bending the thread against it, before it slipped through on the third.

His mouth felt like someone had shoved a wad of cotton in there. His head throbbed. He stitched the wound. It hurt, but the wound-pain mostly covered it, thankfully.

He slumped further against the rock.

Throbbing head. Parched mouth. Nausea. _Oh_. Water loss from blood loss, probably.

He took a swig from his water skin—and regretted it almost immediately, his stomach roiling at the sudden entry of liquid. He sat for a second, and breathed.

He pulled a paper-wrapped packet of salt out of his healing kit, and dumped it in his mouth. It tasted sweeter than lembas. That was—not ideal. But hopefully resolved now.

He sat there for a minute, too exhausted and in too much pain to contemplate action.

But Túrin had been taken. By orcs. To Angband, most likely—every idle second was a second he got further away, a second the trail grew colder, a second he got closer to the North.

Beleg stood up, the stab wound screaming again, and stumbled towards the internal stairs, the ones Andróg had shown them, the ones he had _been right about_—

He got a few steps down them before falling. He landed on his hands and knees, falling no further. _Don’t stand up, _his body said. _Don’t try._

He ground his teeth. If he had to crawl to Túrin, he would crawl.

So he did.

He panted as he climbed down. A stitch formed, creating a line of pain and angered flesh along his ribs and down to the wound. His heart hammered in his chest. He kept going.

He had to stop at the bottom of the steps, his lungs unable to catch a full breath, breathing hard and fast _just going down the stairs_. His arms collapsed under him, unable to bear his weight any longer.

He sucked in a breath, as soon as it had slowed enough that he could control it. If he had to drag himself after Túrin—

He dragged himself. He had to stop every five metres, too exhausted and in pain to continue.

Then every two metres.

The door got further and further as he got closer.

It had to have taken him less time that it felt like it had— the time it felt like was _absurd_— to reach out and brush his fingers against the door. His chest was in agony, his limbs burned with exhaustion, his head buzzed with the returned water-hunger, he could barely get enough breath into his lungs.

And the rock stayed against the door.

He couldn’t move it. He couldn’t move it on his own with all his strength, and he certainly did not have all that now.

He’d have to go up the internal stairs and go back down the external ones to leave Amon Rudh.

He did not have the strength to do that.

He screamed, and slapped the ground. His hand stung. He screamed in frustration and pain and exhaustion. He reached the door. He reached the door and he couldn’t get through it and he had crawled down the stairs for nothing and he couldn’t climb them again.

He took a breath. Tried to calm himself. It didn’t help. Túrin was getting closer and closer to Angband with each minute, and he couldn’t get himself through a _bloody doo_r, let alone rescue him. Túrin could be dead by now, for all he knew. He had to rescue him and he couldn’t because of bloody door and a traitorous body and—

Another breath. He couldn’t progress. Not now. Worrying about Túrin now wouldn’t help. If he couldn’t get up the stairs (_after so much effort getting down them_–), then he would husband his strength.

He crawled over to the fire pit. A few embers burned in it, each spark as lonesome as he was. He was so tired and it hurt so much and he didn’t want to stop because as he stopped he would feel it fully—

He curled up by what remained of the fire, and closed his eyes, exhausted and in pain and with nothing else to do but rest.

It was cold, on his own in Amon Rudh.

* * *

He tended to his strength like an injured hunting dog.

His big success for the first day was eating once and managing to climb up the stairs to retrieve his mail before it rusted.

His success for the second day was eating multiple times, and starting to build a pyre. (Túrin was getting further and further away, but he couldn’t follow yet. He wanted to, but not yet. His body couldn’t. He’d get halfway down Amon Rudh and collapse.)

The third day, he finished the pyre, using their whole store of firewood. (It wasn’t like the Gaurwaith would need it ever again–) He burned the dead, the most respectful thing he could do as just one elf. It wasn’t enough.

One the fourth day he was so exhausted he could barely move.

On the fifth—to leave would be pushing his strength. It would be reckless and risky and likely to end in failure. But Túrin was five days away now. Tomorrow he would be six. He had to leave.

He packed as much supplies as he could carry, though he carried only lembas for food, and set out by noon of the fifth day.

* * *

He found the trail. By pure good luck and the good will of Fate, he found the trail of the orcs along the Teiglin, trampling the grass and churning the mud.

He followed it until it split. He chose the North trail. North was Angband. And if they were taking the son of Húrin anywhere, it would be Angband.

Beleg took a deep breath, and steeled himself. He would follow Túrin into Angband. Nothing would stop him from trying.

(A lot could stop him from succeeding.)

He followed the trail. Through Dimbar, through the Pass of Anach, and into the Taur-nu-Fuin, the forests of terror.

* * *

The forest was dark and dense and dying.

It had burned with Ard-Galen. It had half-lived.

Many forests could survive burning, could regrow and regenerate and renew. Taur-nu-Fuin _didn’t_ and _did_ in a combination that should not have happened. Something of that fire, that poison and smoke and the darkness of Angband, warped it. Some new saplings grew, but they grew stunted and black and twisted. Some trees grew rings of new trunks around them, like iron crowns reaching for the sky. Some trees died, but refused to fall, their blackened trunks holding the memory of the fire.

No birds sang. No animals scampered away at the sound of his footfalls.

The branches blotted out the sky. Ash and shadow and soot blackened the ground. The charcoal trees stood tall and black.

It only grew darker as night fell.

Except for—

A light shone in the distance. Small, and faint, but a light nonetheless. Someone was here.

He approached carefully, lest it was an orc who had got lost from the pack. He could deal with a lone orc—but it would be a delay, and one that could alert any other orcs.

It was an elf. Curled up in the sleep of pain and healing, cradling a recently injured hand. (Or the lack of one, as Beleg took a second look.) A little lantern, one of the Noldor ones, sat next to his head, shining faintly.

Beleg walked slowly, and deliberately loudly, letting the dead sticks crack under his feet.

The elf woke with a start when he got to a metre away. He blinked, tense and ready to run, but relaxed when he saw the figure in front of him was an elf. 

Beleg handed him lembas.

The elf took it, and bit into it hungrily. After a few bites, he looked up at him again. “…Beleg? Beleg Strongbow, of Doriath?”

“Yes.” Beleg searched the elf’s face, trying to place it. It was maybe familiar—but the face was lined and worn and scarred, and he could not work that backwards to the face of any elf he knew.

“I didn’t expect to see– many people again, but you’re particularly unexpected.” He laughed, somewhere between ‘bitter’ and ‘trying to exercise unused muscles’. “I half expected Thingol to exile you for showing up for us Noldo, if you weren’t one of the best march wardens.”

Someone from the Nirnaeth, then, but he still couldn’t match his face to anyone. “I’m sorry, but I don’t—don’t recognise you.”

The elf sighed, seeming like he was disappointed in himself for not expecting that reaction. “Gwindor, son of Guilin.”

And yes, Beleg did recognise that nose, now broken. The black hair that had been silky fine, now torn and matted and ragged. The fiery eyes, now dimmed and having trouble focusing anywhere but the middle distance.

Beleg looked away. It would do to stare. “I’d hoped you were dead.”

Gwindor nodded in acknowledgement.

They paused, unsure of where to go next.

“I got put in one the mining gangs,” Gwindor said, unprompted. He sat up, and curled his arms around his knees. (This had to be the first time he had told anyone, had ever to tell someone, Beleg realised.) “The orcs knew their mountains were wealthy, but they did not know how to mine ore, nor did they wish the effort of digging it out themselves. So, they forced us to do it, to find the veins of green sphalerite and galena and chalcopyrite that had bubbled up through Angband. They let us keep our lamps though.” He jerked his head towards his, and laughed, definitely bitter this time. “A small kindness. Many escaped using them to light their way.

“I didn’t want that though. I, who rode up to the Gates of Angband, wanted more than that.” It was a self-conscious statement, but it was _true_. “I wanted to _hurt_ them. I still wanted to escape, but I wanted to hurt them more than the more loss of one slave, even if that extra hurt was but a pinprick. 

“A friend of mine in the forges snuck me a sword. I fought my way out. I mostly succeeded.” He held up the stump of his hand.

“That— sounds like you.”

He laughed, loud and, if not joyous, than at least without as much of a bitter tang as his words. “Fighting foolish battles I shouldn’t even attempt? I’ll take it. Nearly got caught again, just a little while back. Some orcs passed me by. Only a small company, but—” He waved his wrist in circles through the air.

Beleg frowned. “Where were they headed?”

“North. At speed.”

An advanced guard then. One bearing news to Angband, perhaps. The news that they had captured an important prisoner.

The westward tracks along the Teiglin must have been the company that had Túrin was (Gwindor would have mentioned any men, if there were there). Going up the defile of Sirion, no doubt. Very far from here. How could he catch up with them? How could he get to Túrin before they reached Angband? Before Angband, he had a chance to succeed, to save Túrin, but after—

Something clattered in the distance. (Probably the distance. All sound scattered and bounced by and echoed off the trees in this forest). Footfalls, rhythmic and metallic.

Beleg turned around.

A glint off metal, from just the barest starlight filtered through the trees. Mail. Orc mail. Worn by a large company of orcs.

Beleg whipped back round to Gwindor.

Gwindor tried to leap and scramble up the tree, but he was hampered by the lack of his hand. He made a bit-off scream of frustration.

Beleg grabbed him and hoisted him up within arms-reach of a branch.

Gwindor grabbed it, and hung for a moment.

Beleg stood frozen, waiting to see if he would fall (and land with a thump that the orcs could hear–)

Gwindor lifted himself up, until he could hook the elbow of his handless arm around the branch. He hauled his legs up into the tree with a grunt of effort.

The orcs got closer. Their footfalls got louder, bounced and echoed less.

Beleg grabbed the lantern, so as not leave any evidence. He didn’t look behind him. Any delay only increased the risk of being seen. He had to move fast.

He scrambled up the tree, hand over hand, onto a branch higher than Gwindor’s.

The orc company marched passed them, not a single one looking up. _Lazy._

Wolves stalked and patrolled their flanks. The lower ranking orcs, wearing patched mail and looking exhausted, carried great bags of plunder, or pulled carts laden with stolen goods. Towards the centre, higher ranking orcs with whips drove on captives.

A captive with dark hair stood in the very centre, being dragged with as much force as it would have taken to drag a full-laden cart. They whipped his back, which sufficed to make him take one involuntary step. He didn’t look different from the other captives, _shouldn’t_ have looked different from the other captives; they were all bone deep tired and in pain and had darting eyes in search for an escape route. But the height and the dark eyes and dark hair and the air that this whole thing was an affront and he would make the orcs _pay _for it and he would _succeed_, and _drag_ the rest of this sorry lot of captives out with him– It had to be Túrin.

Beleg bit off a cry. He knew where he was, at least. But with a host of orcs that size? On his own? He thought he had a chance to free him before Angband. He reassessed his odds.

Dying was not the thing he feared the most.

Dying and failing, leaving Túrin alone in the clutches of Angband—he couldn’t think that thought all the way through. He had to, though. The possibility was in front of him, under him, passing the tree in which he hid.

The orc host wound its way out of sight.

Gwindor frowned at him, looking concerned.

It must have shown on his face. “One of the captives,” Beleg explained, “is Túrin—son of Húrin,” he added, as he realised that Gwindor would have no reason to recognise Túrin’s name on his own “He was my—friend. I followed him out of Doriath.”

Gwindor exhaled, hearing all the half-said things there. “You won’t succeed. You’d only join him.”

Failure loomed in front of him. Beleg jumped out of the tree. “I have to try.” He offered a hand to Gwindor, to help him out of the tree. “I can’t just—not. I can’t abandon him. And if I join him—” _Would that be so bad?_ But no, he couldn’t say that, not to Gwindor, who had lost so much trying to escape. “—it’s a risk I have to chance. And if I can reach him before they reach Angband, I have a reasonable chance, I have taken on bands of a similar size—with better cover, mind you.” _And not alone_.

Gwindor took the offered hand and lowered himself out of the tree. “I’ll help.”

“You—you really don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“It’s not a risk I can ask you to take.”

“I may not be able to get home like this. I _can_ hurt Angband. And you have a better chance of taking back your friend, as two.”

“I—” Beleg bowed his head. “—Thank you.”

“You can thank me when this works.”

* * *

Following the orcs was easy, they had only just passed by, and they didn’t bother disguising their trail.

Beleg and Gwindor followed the foot prints and churned ash.

Night fell. Clouds gathered. Thunder rolled.

They left the trees of the Taur-nu-Fuin, and crossed into the plains of Anfauglith.

The orcs made their camp in the open, in a valley between hills, near a thicket of stunted thorn trees.

Beleg and Gwindor sprinted from the cover of the forest, to the thicket, trying to spend as little time in the open as possible, to spend as little time visible as possible.

They didn’t need such speed. The orcs lazed about, asleep or drunk or both. Wolf sentinels scanned the distance, squinting at the horizon, their eyes little match for the darkness of a cloud covered night sky.

Unless they got closer, of course. The wolves would be able to see them then.

He couldn’t see Túrin, but he had to be there. Where else could he be?

They had to get in.

Gwindor looked up at him.

The closest wolf turned its head, turned it towards the thorn thicket.

It would see them. It would see them if it looked, if it really _looked_.

The breeze changed, blowing their scent towards.

It would howl in alarm at any second.

Beleg leaped up. His heart thudded in his chest. He had one chance. It would hear the movement, see it, if he didn’t act fast. It would spot him and it would be over then.

He knocked an arrow and fired.

It struck the wolf in the eye. The arrow kept going, tearing through vitreous fluid to the brain.

The wolf fell with a quiet thud and a twitching paw.

Beleg ducked back down into cover. _One down, three to go. _He looked at Gwindor and jerked his head at the dead wolf, checking to see how he felt about the plan to shot them.

He nodded.

Beleg knocked another arrow, but kept the tension loose as he picked his shoot. The next wolf was further away. Still in range, but the arrow would lose power, and he had to kill it quickly and quietly. Another eye shot could do it, but it was a tiny target. He could do it when he was practicing outside Menegroth, he _had_ done it, but with his hand shaking and his breath coming fast—

He exhaled, long and slow. He could do this. (Had to do this.)

Gwindor vibrated with fear and tension.

The wolf stared at the opposite horizon.

He stood up and fired.

He couldn’t hear the thud. The orcs didn’t either.

He shot the rest of them, each target further and more nerve-wracking than the last. But the wolves died.

Now they just… had to sneak into the camp, without alerting the orcs. They may have been drunk and snoring—but this would still be difficult. And dangerous.

Beleg was grateful for the back-up, if it all went wrong.

He and Gwindor picked their way through the camp.

Food scraps and bones and gristle lay where they had been spat out. The orcs sprawled throughout the camp, asleep on their lonesome.

The captives huddled in a makeshift pen, exhausted and cold.

Túrin wasn’t there.

Beleg bit down his panic. He had to be somewhere. Even if he wasn’t in the pen, he had to be somewhere.

“I can’t see hi—” Gwindor whispered– and then abruptly stopped.

Beleg followed his gaze.

Túrin stood tied to a tree, slumped against the ropes in weakness and fatigue. Knives stood embedded in the bark around him, in a halo around him. None had hit, but it was a close thing. He couldn’t have been there, tied like that, for more than a few hours, but even just a few hours was a lot—

“He looks important,” said Gwindor. “That him?”

Beleg nodded, and walked up. Slowly slowly slowly, trying not to make a single sound, a single pad of a footfall or a scrape against gravel. If he got caught, when he was so close—

He stood next to Túrin. Could feel his breath against his face. He was live, at least. Thank Eru, he was alive. “Túrin?” He whispered.

No response.

He must have been so tired. And in so much pain.

Beleg exhaled. He had work to do. He could feel hurt-for-his-hurt when Túrin wasn’t tied to a tree, captured and torment by orcs, on his way to Angband. “Help me untie him.”

Thunder rolled, just over their heads.

Gwindor cut the rope with his sword.

Beleg grabbed Túrin by the torso, and Gwindor grabbed him by the legs.

They moved, as fast as they could, as quiet as they could, without dropping him. It was hard to do all three, and Beleg could feel Gwindor’s strength fading, as more and more Túrin’s weight shifted to him.

They got to the thorn thicket, before Gwindor had to drop him.

Beleg laid Túrin’s top half down as gently as they could.

Lightning cracked, bright and harsh in the dark night, silhouetting Thangorodrim.

His pupils contracted against the glare.

Beleg thought to cut his shoes free (because who knows how much his feet swelled had swelled by, the state of them–) but that could happen after. Rope first. Shoes after.

The night was so much darker for that lightning flash, Beleg only just able to see Túrin in front of him.

When would the orcs notice he was gone?

He had to act fast. Get Túrin to the point he could run if he had to–

Something heavy settled over his shoulders. Fear or Fate or something darker—

He cut the ropes around Túrin’s feet.

Missed.

Túrin sprang up.

Something pulled Beleg forward, pulled him forward by the sword.

Túrin moved and he couldn’t see it.

Did Gwindor just jump closer out of the corner of his eye—

The sword left his hand. Pulled out of it. Yanked out.

Gwindor got closer.

Túrin got closer, eye whites wide and wild—

Something punched him in the chest. No, the pain was brighter, sharper, more cut than impact.

He looked down. His vision blurred and greyed.

A black sword stood proud in a red pond.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Rhaw: The Sindarin equivalent of the Quenya hroä, the body, as opposed to the soul. 
> 
> Green sphalerite is a zinc ore-- with the added green colour from toxic cadmium.  
Galena is lead ore, and is also quite toxic.  
Chalcopyrite is a copper ore, and one of the few relatively non-toxic ones Gwindor dealt with.


End file.
